Funding Societies Malaysia has announced that it has achieved RM1 billion disbursement in business financing across more than 17,000 financing deals, directly supporting creditworthy underserved SMEs across the nation.
This milestone comes as the platform enters its fifth year of operations in the country. Learning from the challenges and uncertainties it faced in the past two years, the platform said in a statement it was in a better position to react and to adjust its business model and risk underwriting, resulting in 100% growth of financing deals in 2021 compared to the previous year, while maintaining a default rate of around 3%.
Funding Societies has over the years championed SME digital financing with over 60% market share via tailored financing solutions befitting the varied business needs of SMEs.
With a fully online onboarding process, the platform addresses typical challenges faced by SMEs when obtaining financing solutions including collateral requirement, physical documentation submission and lengthy processes.
Wong Kah Meng, co-founder and CEO of Funding Societies Malaysia, said, “The pandemic has paved a new era of digital inclusion. This simultaneously allows us to scale further in reaching out to more of these creditworthy MSMEs, in line with their increased awareness on digital financing platforms.
“This RM1 billion disbursement milestone is a reflection of the thousands of underserved creditworthy SMEs we have supported over the years, not just in Malaysia, but also across Southeast Asia.”
Its inaugural regional impact study released late last year which surveyed the platform’s impact on Singapore’s, Malaysia’s, and Indonesia’s economies found that 72% of the respondents said their revenues would decrease if not for Funding Societies’ business financing.
Meanwhile, 84% of the surveyed businesses had used the financing as working capital to pay for overheads, inventory, and business equipment, which were all crucial in their efforts to sustain operations.
