Funding Societies, CGC partner to provide additional financing to SMEs

PETALING JAYA: Funding Societies, the largest unified small and medium enterprises (SME) digital finance platform in Malaysia and South-East Asia, has extended its partnership with Credit Guarantee Corp Malaysia Bhd (CGC) to launch a RM30mil Islamic SME Portfolio Guarantee (SME PG-i) Scheme to accelerate the growth of Malaysian SMEs by facilitating easier access to financing.

In a joint statement, the parties said the partnership builds on CGC’s first Portfolio Guarantee programme with Funding Societies of RM10mil that was launched in April last year.

“In addition to a higher allocation, the SME PG-i scheme has been enhanced to provide working capital financing to a broader segment of underserved SMEs through Funding Societies leading Islamic digital financing solutions.

“Eligible SMEs will continue to have access to longer term financing and enjoy preferential interest rates, lowest among Funding Societies’ existing portfolio of financing.”

Funding Societies/Modalku co-founder and group chief executive officer Kelvin Teo noted that the Securities Commission in its “Catalysing MSME and MTC Access to the Capital Market: 5 Year Roadmap (2024-2028)” estimates that the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) financing gap has widened to RM290bil in 2022 from the earlier projection of RM90bil.

“It is imperative that stakeholders within the ecosystem collaborate to offer innovative solutions that can better complement traditional financing sources.

“On this front, we are delighted to further strengthen our partnership with CGC with this additional tranche.”

Teo added that the Islamic SME Portfolio Guarantee Scheme is a continuation of Funding Societies’ product roadmaps to scale its syariah-compliant proposition to support creditworthy Malaysian SMEs of all sizes to thrive, contributing to Malaysia’s leadership in Islamic finance and ambition to be a global leader in Islamic financial technology.

Meanwhile, CGC president and chief executive officer Datuk Mohd Zamree Mohd Ishak said: “In CGC’s pursuit to provide more MSMEs with access to financing, we launched a RM10mil portfolio guarantee (PG) in April 2023 with Funding Societies, which has received encouraging response from unserved and underserved Malaysian MSMEs.

“Given the success of the first tranche, I am pleased that CGC launched a second tranche of RM30mil Islamic PG with Funding Societies.”