Digital finance platform Funding Societies announced on Tuesday that it has secured a third credit facility from lender HSBC under the latter’s $1-billion ASEAN Growth Fund.
The latest transaction brings HSBC’s total commitment to Funding Societies, known as Modalku in Indonesia, to over $100 million since they first partnered in 2022.
The facility will support the Southeast Asian firm’s bid to provide credit access to underserved micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the region, it said in a statement. According to estimates by the SME Finance Forum, there is a $2.5 trillion credit access gap in the Asia Pacific region, which accounts for over half of the global shortfall in small business financing.
As part of a multi-faceted partnership, HSBC will act as the structuring bank, lender, account bank, foreign exchange counterparty, facility and security agent in providing a scalable and pan-regional financing solution to support Funding Societies’s business expansion in the region.
The announcement follows a strategic investment by Malaysian lender Maybank in the fintech company, which was announced in September.
Funding Societies claims to have disbursed over $4 billion in business financing to SMEs across Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. It offers microloans from $500 to $1.5 million that can be disbursed within 24 hours, targeting small businesses looking to manage their cash flow.
Early this year, the firm received an investment from Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah National and CGC Digital, a Malaysia-based provider of digital financial solutions for MSMEs.
In November 2023, Funding Societies announced raising $7.5 million in debt funding from Norwegian state-owned investor Norfund. The financing came just a month after it secured $27 million in a debt funding round led by Asia-focused private credit financier AlteriQ Global.
