Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME) on Friday said it has received in-principal approval from SIDBI for designing and structuring a sustainable and scalable NBFC Growth Accelerator Program (NGAP).

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In the first phase, the programme involves the design of a comprehensive, actionable, granular report with the programme structure, piloting strategy and implementation plan for NGAP by GAME, it said in a release.

The programme will also include criteria for the evaluation and selection of around 20 NBFCs that are small in size but focused on the MSE segment to be part of the pilot cohort.

"The goal of NGAP is to have a structured model on the lines of global accelerators, which will help small NBFCs that cater to MSEs in Tier 3 and 4 cities or to the urban MSEs that serve as the lowest rung of suppliers in a longer value chain, in order to build their capability and make them eligible for institutional funding from banks or larger NBFCs," the release said.

NGAP is expected to be rolled out with active engagement of SIDBI from August 2023.

SIDBI CMD Sivasubramanian Raman said this will enhance the flow of assistance to the MSME sector. The NGAP should help address shortcomings in the overall functioning of the NBFC and thus give greater confidence to banks to lend to smaller unrated NBFCs.

Elaborating on the collaboration, Ravi Venkatesan, founder of GAME, said the ultimate goal of the NGAP framework is to enable a larger set of NBFCs to get access to institutional funding at a reasonable rate, so the benefit can be passed on to the MSMEs.