SME Lending in India
A structured domain guide for Indian SME and MSME lending, from market foundations and RBI regulation through origination, underwriting, servicing, collections, recovery and system design.
First published 17 July 2026 · Reviewed against regulations in force as of July 2026.
- 01Foundations & Market
MSME definitions, lender landscape, unit economics, institutions and long-run market shifts.
- 02RBI Regulatory Framework
RBI powers, NBFC regulation, KYC, conduct, IRAC, digital lending, PSL, co-lending and governance.
- 03Products
Business loans, working capital, machinery finance, LAP, invoice finance, guarantees and schemes.
- 04Digital & Embedded Lending
Direct digital, LSP-fronted, anchor-led, LaaS, co-lending, OCEN and ONDC operating models.
- 05The Lending Lifecycle
Every stage from sourcing and onboarding to underwriting, documentation, disbursement and monitoring.
- 06Collections & Recovery
DPD, collections operations, settlements, legal recovery, asset sale, provisioning impact and conduct rules.
- 07People & Org
NBFC org design, front office, credit risk, control roles, incentives and RACI ownership.
- 08Credit Risk Deep Dive
Financial analysis, cash-flow methods, scorecards, portfolio analytics, pricing, ALM and fraud controls.
- 09Data & Integrations
India Stack, bureaus, bank-statement analysis, lending systems and vendor categories.
- 10System Blueprint
Module boundaries, domain models, state machines, workflows, partner modules and compliance hooks.
- 11Reference
Glossary, RBI circular index and metrics cheat sheet compiled from the guide.
New to lending? Read in this order
- 01Foundations & Market
The landscape and vocabulary.
- 03Products
What is actually sold.
- 05The Lending Lifecycle
How a loan really happens, end to end.
- 06Collections & Recovery
What happens when it goes wrong.
- 02RBI Regulatory Framework
The rules behind everything you just read.
- 08Credit Risk Deep Dive
How lenders think about risk.
Parts 04, 07, 09 deepen specific angles; Part 10 turns it all into software.
Read Parts 1 to 4 for context, Parts 5 to 9 for operating depth, then Part 10 as the implementation specification. Use Reference when terms, circulars or formulas need a quick lookup.