Impact Lending 2026 Kochi Chapter, a roundtable on lending opportunities for Kerala’s MSME sector, has highlighted the significant demand-supply gap in credit across industries.

Organised by Nexo, a fintech startup, in association with the Southern India Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SICCI), Kerala, the event brought together bankers, NBFC professionals and entrepreneurs from sectors including automobiles, FMCG, agriculture, healthcare, education and Agentic AI.

Noble Jacob, VP Projects, EVM Group, and Jayachandran Balakrishnan, GM & CCO of Muthoot Finance Ltd, discussed the changing dynamics of the automotive and financial sectors. While consumer demand, particularly for electric vehicles (EVs), is growing rapidly, financing remains a major challenge. The lack of long-term data on battery life and residual values has made EV lending highly unstandardised, prompting banks to adopt stricter lending norms.

As a result, dealerships are increasingly partnering with agile regional NBFCs to address financing gaps. The panel observed that the financial sector is currently in a temporary “wait-and-watch” phase and expects lender confidence to improve as manufacturers expand production and introduce standardised risk mechanisms.

The FMCG session, attended by John Simon, Director of Lazza Ice Cream, and Susheel Aswani, Managing Partner, Aswani Lachmandas Group, highlighted the severe working capital constraints faced by micro-distributors operating on margins of less than one per cent. Manufacturers typically require payments within 15 to 30 days, while retailers often take up to 60 days to settle dues.

With ₹4-10 lakh constantly locked up in moving inventory, these essential distributors lack the hard-asset collateral required for traditional bank loans,” noted Aswani. A single supply chain hiccup or market fluctuation can instantly collapse their cash flow, John Simon said.

Jayachandran, GM & CCO of Muthoot Finance Ltd, confirmed that they offer “tailor-made” supply chain finance products for MSMEs, relying mostly on the borrower’s bureau records and their transaction data with the anchor distributor.

Representing Nexo FinOS, Kurian George presented an “Impact Lending” framework that shifts lending decisions from asset-based collateral to real-time operational data. By integrating with billing software, inventory systems and field-level ERP platforms, Nexo FinOS enables lenders to assess businesses based on transaction patterns and cash-flow behaviour.

Published on June 24, 2026