KUALA LUMPUR, Apr 24, 2015: AmBank (M) Berhad and Credit Guarantee Corporation Malaysia Berhad (CGC) signed a Portfolio Guarantee (PG) agreement today to further enhance Small Medium Enterprise (SME) financing in Malaysia.

Through this partnership, both CGC and AmBank have committed to extend RM300 million of financing to five main sectors namely Wholesale and Retail Trade; Manufacturing; Education, Health Care; Construction and Resources.

These sectors have been identified under the SME Masterplan 2012-2020 with growth potential where Malaysia has both comparative and competitive advantages with high multiplier effect.

The SMEs in these five sectors can look forward to securing higher financing amount up to RM3,000,000 and with a loan tenure of up to five years.

“We are pleased to partner CGC in this Portfolio Guarantee collaboration which AmBank will provide accessible working capital financing to qualified SMEs. We have allocated an initial sum of RM300 million to further support our existing customers in their expansion phase and reach out to new SME customers throughout the country.

The SME segment is one of our key growth areas for this year, accordingly this CGC tie up is timely for AmBank Group to increase our market share and contribute to economic growth in the country,” said Pushpa Rajadurai, Managing Director, Wholesale Banking, AmBank Group at the PG signing ceremony where she signed the documents together with Encik Mohd Zamree Mohd Ishak, President and Chief Executive Officer, CGC, witnessed by Tan Sri Azman Hashim, Chairman, AmBank Group and Dato’ Agil Natt, Chairman CGC.

“CGC is always committed towards offering innovative financial solutions that can ease access to financing for SMEs and address the key concerns of discernible SMEs, which is the speed at which loans are approved and disbursed. As such, our collaboration with AmBank is primarily focused on ensuring that SMEs secure the amount of financing they require in the shortest time possible, which is proven to be possible through the PG,” said Zamree.

“CGC is able to provide approvals within three days upon receipt of the applications from AmBank as the pre-determined and simplified set of criteria for loan eligibility have been agreed upfront,” he added.

“With AmBank on board, we are looking forward to leverage on their SME experience and wide branch network to further enhance our SME outreach,” said Zamree.

Other distinct feature of this PG is the certainty in approval which is almost 100% due to the efficiency of the process flow and previous experience as well as no guarantee fees and hassle-free applications.

Zamree also added that future collaboration efforts with AmBank will include Wholesale Guarantee financing which is aimed to provide unsecured business financing, a new frontier for the banking industry by reducing risk on books of the FIs and freeing up capital for SME financing.

At the same event, AmBank also launched AmBank BizSolutions offering different financing and non-financing products and solutions which are tailored for Commercial and SME companies.

Among the range of products and solutions under AmBank BizSolutions are the BizSolutions Credit Guarantee Corporation Malaysia Berhad (CGC) Portfolio Guarantee (PG)–Term Loan (TL) or BizSolutions CGC PG-TL and BizSolutions Fortune$, with more customer-centric products in the pipeline to innovate their business.  

“With SMEs being the driving force of the Malaysian economy, this financing solution can be tailored from the simplest asset financing to general working capital, to even financing specific projects. Not just for ordinary everyday transactions, the AmBank BizSolutions will provide solutions for your cash flow management and also for managing your payables and receivables,” said Pushpa.