The Trade Receivables and Discounting System (TreDs), begun in 2014, has not really taken off. A platform that essentially discounts the bills receivable of a supplier and recovers the sum from the buyer at a later date, this facility was meant to work as a game changer for MSMEs that are plagued by delayed payments from large buyers, which disrupts their working capital cycle. However, going by the estimates of the UK Sinha committee on MSMEs, TreDs is processing barely one per cent of the unmet credit needs of the MSME sector, about INR 20 lakh crore (US$27.3bn); the platform handles a turnover of less than INR 15,000 crore (US$2.05bn) from about 5.5 lakh (550000) invoices.
