Funding Societies and SGeBIZ Partner to Serve Under-served SMEs

Funding Societies, Southeast Asia’s leading SME digital financing platform, has today announced that it is collaborating with Singapore E-Business Pte Ltd (SGeBIZ) to provide quick financing solutions to local SME suppliers and their buyers. Funding Societies offers a diverse range of loan products, which are now easily accessible by SME owners via SGeBIZ’s e-procurement management system, EzyProcure, Singapore’s first and leading B2B procure-to-pay platform.

According to a 2019 survey conducted by consultancy firm Bain & Company in collaboration with Temasek and Google, millions of Southeast Asia’s SMEs today still encounter large funding gaps. The survey expects innovations in SME working capital financing, similar to what platforms like Funding Societies are doing, to grow by more than 20% annually through 2025, ultimately becoming the largest revenue contributor of the region’s transactions.

As an organisation founded to support the working capital needs of the under-served or un-served SMEs, Funding Societies views this partnership as another way to lower the barrier of access to working capital for small businesses. Small businesses on SGeBIZ will now be able to access funds from Funding Societies to improve and match their cash cycles, giving them an opportunity to grow their business. Funding Societies provides loans to SMEs in as quickly as 24 hours.

SGeBIZ was launched in 2014 by two ex-Republic of Singapore Air Force aviators on a mission to simplify work processes for SMEs through automating data entry and digitising inventory, supply chain and credit rails. Their flagship product, EzyProcure, is now a PEPPOL (Pan European Public Procurement On-Line) compliant and IMDA-approved access point provider supporting the E-Invoicing Initiative implemented nationwide last year.

The acclaimed technology solutions firm has more than 1,000 clients under its belt in Singapore alone, and recognises that SMEs face a multitude of complications in their supply chain with procurement and payments. Having helped replace outdated processes like manual ordering, goods receiving, inventory tracking, and reconciliation and documentation of invoices, it now aims to resolve a critical challenge that businesses sometimes encounter – cash flow. Often when buyers fail to pay in a timely manner, suppliers suffer a temporary but huge blow on their income.

“Any buyer or supplier will look forward to extended credit terms or collecting payments within two to three days from delivery of goods and services because it helps mitigate challenges surrounding cashflow optimisation and payment collection. Now, our win-win solution is a reality and is made available for all businesses to enjoy,” comments Edmund Louis Nathan, Group CEO of SGeBIZ.

“Unlike their larger counterparts, SMEs find their financial challenges much harder to overcome, which in turn impacts their ability to capture available opportunities for business growth. It is crucial that small enterprises are financed at maximum speed and with flexibility of the best repayment structure so that they have access to a steady cash flow,” comments Dheeraj Chowdhry, CEO Singapore of Funding Societies. Funding Societies has given out more than S$1.1 billion in financing regionally, spread across more than 1.4 million loans funded by individual and institutional investors starting with investment amount as low as S$20 per loan.