Amazon of public procurement partners with these two banks; to enable payments, funds transfer, more

GeM on Tuesday launched GeM Samvaad — a programme to onboard sellers on the platform.

Credit and Finance for MSMEs: Online platform for public sector units, departments, and organisations to buy goods from micro and small enterprises (MSEs) and other sellers — Government e-Marketplace (GeM) signed two memorandum of understandings (MoU) with Bank of Maharashtra and UCO Bank this week to provide services such as transfer of funds through GeM Pool Accounts (GPA). The two banks would also provide advice of Performance Bank Guarantees (e-PBG) and Earnest Money Deposit (EMD) to the registered users on the portal. GeM has so far partnered with 19 public and private sector banks including Union Bank of India, Central Bank of India, Federal Bank etc.

“Integration for payments and various banking services is one of the priorities for GeM towards the cherished goal of a paperless, contactless and cashless system,” Commerce Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. GeM portal has close to 3.1 lakh sellers so far including 63,410 MSE sellers. The marketplace has processed 29.18 lakh orders worth Rs 41,364 crores in gross merchandise value till date out of which 51.18 per cent has been transacted by MSMEs. The portal has over 16 lakh products and more than 20,000 services listed. The current number of buyers is 41,199.

Also read: Govt follows in Amazon, Flipkart footsteps to attract sellers on its e-commerce marketplace GeM

GeM is also working with TReDs and SIDBI to offer bill discounting and financing of working capital where the cost of capital is linked to the seller’s performance and rating on the portal. “This will help the sellers in general and the MSMEs, in particular, to access easy credit and do better business with the government,” the ministry added. The portal is also looking at setting up of Earnest Money Deposit (EMD) pool account for sellers to easily comply with the EMD requirements while responding to bids.

GeM on Tuesday launched GeM Samvaad — a programme to onboard sellers on the platform. GeM Samvaad will “take place with stakeholders across the country and with local sellers in order to facilitate on-boarding of local sellers on the marketplace while catering to specific requirements and procurement needs of buyers,” Commerce Ministry said in a statement. The initiative will run from December 19, 2019, to February 17, 2020, across all the states and union territories.