State Bank of India combined two merchant applications, YONO Cash and YONO Business, to help AMUL Dairy farmers get cash for their produce from kirana or small pharmacies without having them to set up a PoS (Point of Sale) Machine, Rana Ashutosh Kumar Singh, Deputy MD (Transaction Banking & New Initiatives), State Bank of India, said. Calling the bank a pioneer in credit line innovation in remote areas, Singh said SBI is evolving in keeping the curve of the digital initiatives. SBI YONO has more than 50 million registered users, he said at the MSME Conclave by the Financial Express.

Citing the example of Germany, which was a leader in global exports, Singh said Indian entrepreneurs could become market leaders in their own unique products. He cited another success story, where an Indian company acquired a bankrupt German company, which supplied wooden sleepers to German railway operator Deutsche Bahn, and expanded footprints across the globe with financial assistance from SBI. Singh said that it was a risky project but in the end it was an immense success.

Talking about the government’s ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) initiative, he said that it started with Bharat Craft by SBI before moving to a larger scale with the current scheme. ONDC is very important in the MSME ecosystem for promoting such business players that have quality products with cost in control, but do not have the marketplace, he added. When asked about measures to give security to lenders, or personal insurance products to compensate for YONO guarantees, he said bankers are there for rehabilitation of genuine business failures.