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Northern Arc Capital, a debt platform for NBFCs, on Monday announced the closure of India’s first invoice-backed securitisation transaction, in association with fintech platform CredAble. Invoice financing is one of the oldest financial products, but it has been traditionally dominated by banks and NBFCs.

Capital market investors, including asset management funds, have not been able to access this multi-trillion-rupee market, primarily due to lack of an eligible instrument. Northern Arc has addressed this issue by creating a listed instrument, which can be subscribed by investors, Northern Arc Capital said in a press statement.

The listed and rated security backed by invoice receivables are issued under SEBI guidelines. Under the transaction, 10 vendors (suppliers) on the CredAble platform discounted invoices that were raised to several large anchors (buyers) by assigning invoice receivables to the securitisation trust. The transaction size was ₹150 million, and the senior tranche was awarded the highest possible short-term rating of A1+(SO) by the rating agency.

An important risk mitigant in the transaction was that money due from the anchors was escrowed to minimise commingling (mixing) of funds. The transaction also has a ramp up feature under which the invoice cashflows can be reinvested to purchase a fresh set of invoices that meet pre-defined eligibility criteria.

“The structure will allow corporates to access the securitisation market, which has so far been mostly dominated by NBFCs. As part of the transaction, we have extended our very successful Multi-Originator Securitisation (MOSEC) platform to non-financial entities as well,” Kshama Fernandes, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Northern Arc Capital, was quoted in the statement.

“We now have the potential to unlock working capital for the entire value chain of our enterprise clients, on both the payables and receivables side, covering suppliers, sub-vendors of their suppliers, distributors, dealers and retailers,” said Nirav Choksi, Chief Executive Officer of CredAble.

Published on March 02, 2020