The Ministry of Housing and Local Government (KPKT) has granted approval to eight companies to operate online moneylending businesses, thereby allowing them to provide online loans to the public.
Classified by KPKT as “licenced community credit” companies, leading the list of approved companies are AirAsia Bhd’s new entity BigPay Later, Grab’s financial unit GrabFin Malaysia, and Axiata Digital Capital. Other companies that also obtained KPKT’s approval include:
- Presto Credit Sdn Bhd: Manages PrestoPay, an e-wallet within e-commerce platform PrestoMall
- GHL Payments: A unit of GHL Systems Berhad, a leading payment service provider in ASEAN
- JCL Credit Leasing: Japanese-owned financial services firm that provides a range of products, including personal and business loans, credit sales, and insurance sales
- Fortune Tree Capital: Online trader and money-lender
- Hoop Fintech: Fintech company offering solutions including micro-lending and crowdfunding
The chief executive officer of AirAsia Group, Tan Sri Tony Fernandes said that this approval to provide online loans will soon enable people to get fast loans at low interest rates. He also hoped that the financing will provide people with the chance to do business and have a decent life.
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“In this Covid-19 pandemic period, this financing will be available to the B40 group (and) the aim is trying to get loans approved in minutes,” said Fernandes. He further added that although the B40 group will be the biggest beneficiary from this approval, the financing aid will be made available to people from other income bands as well.
Meanwhile, the head of lending for Grab Finance Malaysia, Henry Ho emphasised that access to financial services is important for individuals, micro, small, and medium businesses. “This has become more important following the outbreak of Covid-19,” he said.
KPKT’s approval for these companies was announced during the virtual launch of the ministry’s online money lending guidelines. KPKT, which governs the moneylending business, had drafted the guidelines for the implementation of online moneylending transactions by licensed community credit companies. With this, the government hopes to narrow the digital technology gap, as well as allow community credit transactions to be carried out more efficiently following new norm requirements.
On top of that, the guidelines are also an effort at modernising the money lending industry – in line with the industry’s rebranding efforts – and at creating a more conducive, secure, and orderly money lending business environment.
(Source: The Edge Markets, DealStreetAsia)
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