Standard Chartered Bank

Standard Chartered is the only foreign bank registered as a CGSS Member Institution. It is also the oldest foreign bank in India, having operated continuously since 1858, when its predecessor the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China opened its first branches in Kolkata and Mumbai. It is India's largest international bank, with roughly 99 branches across 42 cities, a network deliberately concentrated in major commercial centres rather than spread across districts.

Its distinctive value for a startup is cross-border. If your company bills customers overseas, holds a foreign parent or subsidiary, plans to redomicile, or needs foreign exchange and trade finance alongside a rupee working capital facility, a global bank can hold the whole relationship in one place in a way a domestic lender generally cannot. The counterpart is reach and threshold: 99 branches means metro presence only, and a foreign bank's corporate banking thresholds are typically higher than a public sector bank's. Best suited to a revenue-stage startup with genuine international operations.

Its role in the Credit Guarantee Scheme for Startups. Standard Chartered Bank is one of 40 institutions registered with the National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company as a CGSS Member Institution (NCGTC MLI ID 91, classified as a foreign bank). Member Institutions are the lenders that actually extend credit under the scheme: you borrow from Standard Chartered Bank, and NCGTC guarantees it against your default. That guarantee is what allows credit to be extended to a DPIIT-recognised startup without collateral, with cover of up to Rs 20 crore per borrower, being 85 percent of the amount in default on loans up to Rs 10 crore and 75 percent above that.

The terms are the lender's, not the scheme's. CGSS fixes the guarantee, not the loan. The interest rate, tenure, moratorium, repayment schedule and how the Annual Guarantee Fee is passed on to you are all set by Standard Chartered Bank under its own credit policy, and they differ materially between Member Institutions for an identical borrower. Registration does not oblige Standard Chartered Bank to lend: it appraises you on its normal credit standards first and applies the guarantee second. Approaching more than one Member Institution is almost always worth the effort.