Funding Societies, Southeast Asia’s largest SME digital financing platform, launches in Thailand today. The platform will operate under the debt-crowdfunding license given by Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission.
This expansion comes after more than one year of working with Thai regulators and planning for market entry, the startup said.
Operating in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, Thailand will be the FinTech’s fourth market in its six years of operations, making it the only SME digital financing platform in Southeast Asia to be licensed in four countries.
“Funding Societies’ vision has always been to financially enable growth for SMEs, while growing wealth for investors. Having built a market-leading presence in Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia, we’re excited to bring our vision to Thailand and launch today,” said co-founder and group CEO Kelvin Teo.
With the entry into Thailand, Funding Societies will be addressing the US$250 billion SME credit gap that exists in ASEAN’s biggest economies – Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
Funding Societies has disbursed over US$1.4 billion in financing across more than 65,000 SMEs throughout the region and is prepared to provide Thai SMEs with full access to its short-term customisable financing solutions, which are funded by retail and institutional investors.
Thailand is the second-largest economy in Southeast Asia and like many emerging economies in the region, much of Thailand’s GDP comes from small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
According to a paper published by the Asian Development Bank Institute, SMEs account for 99.8% of companies and generate 14 million jobs in Thailand, contributing US$215 billion to the nation’s GDP.
“By leveraging technology, Funding Societies offers SMEs a new avenue of accessing business financing that is fast, affordable, and convenient. The crowdfunding landscape in the country is growing steadily and we see a lot of potential here. We look forward to driving financial inclusion in Thailand and helping to uplift the country’s economy,” said Varun Bhandari, country head of Funding Societies Thailand. – BusinessNewsAsia.com