NBBL Proposes Unified Digital System To Connect MSME Invoicing, Payments, Financing

New Delhi, Sep 12 (KNN) NPCI Bharat BillPay (NBBL) has proposed a centralised digital infrastructure to connect invoices, payments, reconciliation and financing, aimed at helping micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) convert sales into cash and cash flows into formal credit.

The proposed system could help address the MSME sector’s estimated Rs 60 lakh crore formal credit gap while reducing delays and costs associated with payment collection and reconciliation.

According to a report by NBBL and Bain & Company, formal credit of around Rs 34 lakh crore currently meets only part of an estimated Rs 92 lakh crore demand for MSME debt. The gap is particularly acute among smaller enterprises, where formal channels meet only 30-40 per cent of debt demand.

Payment delays further constrain working capital, with around Rs 8.1 lakh crore of MSME receivables estimated to be locked in delayed payments, reported Times Of India.

Connecting The Order-To-Cash Cycle
The proposed infrastructure would digitise the order-to-cash cycle through standardised application programming interfaces (APIs) and enable automated reconciliation across more than 20 crore GST e-invoices generated monthly.

Buyer-confirmed invoices could become financeable records, allowing lenders to assess businesses based more heavily on cash flows and transaction history rather than collateral alone.

The common information layer could also reduce mismatches between invoices and payments that contribute to delayed receivables.

Finance teams currently spend around 30-40 per cent of their time on reconciliation and transaction matching, including invoice processing, payment follow-ups and exception handling, according to the report.

Interoperability Key To B2B Digitisation
The report said the challenge is increasingly one of fragmented information flows rather than a lack of digital infrastructure.

While several components of India’s business ecosystem have been digitised, limited connectivity between platforms continues to increase costs and restrict access to capital.

Bain & Company Partner Saurabh Trehan said the next phase of business-to-business (B2B) digitisation would require stronger connectivity between business systems, payment providers, banks, financiers and public platforms.

NBBL MD & CEO Noopur Chaturvedi said interoperability would be central to the future of B2B commerce as businesses digitise their operations.

The connected infrastructure could also support advanced analytics and agentic artificial intelligence (AI) applications, including cash-flow intelligence, dynamic risk scoring, automated credit underwriting and market intelligence.

Wider Productivity Opportunity
The report estimates that India’s formal business sector is worth than Rs 130 lakh crore and contributes around 45 per cent of the country’s gross value added (GVA).

A connected digital ecosystem is identified as one of four key enablers that could improve productivity across the formal business sector, extending the potential impact of the proposed infrastructure beyond MSME financing.

(KNN Bureau)