Karnataka Bank targets doubling of SCF portfolio through CredAble platform

Karnataka Bank has partnered with CredAble to launch its first fully digital supply chain finance platform, with the Indian lender targeting a doubling of its SCF portfolio during the current financial year.

The platform will support financing programmes for corporate anchors and their dealer and supplier networks, with a particular focus on improving working-capital access for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.

CredAble will provide the technology used to manage programme configuration, customer onboarding, documentation, transaction processing, portfolio monitoring and reporting. The companies said the system would replace fragmented and manual processes with a standardised digital operating model.

Karnataka Bank expects the platform to reduce transaction turnaround times by around 40%, accelerate supplier onboarding by three times and support same-day processing for eligible transactions. Those figures are company projections and will depend on implementation and customer adoption.

Supply chain finance allows suppliers to receive early payment against invoices approved by larger corporate buyers. Funding is generally priced with reference to the buyer’s credit quality rather than the supplier’s standalone risk, potentially lowering financing costs for smaller businesses.

Karnataka Bank said MSME financing already represents close to one-third of its business. The lender serves more than 14m customers through a network of over 950 branches, giving it an established distribution base from which to expand digital working-capital products.

Raghavendra Srinivas Bhat, managing director and chief executive of Karnataka Bank, said combining the bank’s lending capabilities with CredAble’s technology should provide more efficient access to working capital for corporates, dealers, suppliers and MSMEs.

Ashutosh Taparia, chief executive of CredAble’s fintech business, said digital SCF was becoming an important growth tool for banks seeking greater speed, visibility and control across corporate supply chains.

The initiative illustrates how mid-sized banks are using specialist technology providers to compete in supply chain finance without building every operational component internally. The commercial test will be whether Karnataka Bank can translate faster processing into meaningful growth across several corporate anchor programmes.