Since our inception in 2015, Funding Societies has continuously supported creditworthy yet underserved SMEs in Singapore. With geopolitical tensions, trade disruptions and global interest rate volatility to persist this year, SMEs are likely to continue facing challenges in getting the financing they require. Cash flow is the lifeblood of SMEs and pivotal to the business’ sustainability – and in Singapore, there are around 300,000 SMEs contributing to nearly half of the country’s GDP (gross domestic product).

Though there have been revisions to the schemes under the Enterprise Financing Scheme (EFS), the extensions granted by the government to continue supporting SMEs is reassuring. As a participating financial institution of EFS (via our entity FS Capital) since 2020, this continued support will earnestly complement traditional financial institutions (e.g. banks) and digital lenders, like ourselves, to serve in meeting the working capital and trade financing needs of Singapore SMEs.

Our vision is to empower SMEs and we continue to broaden our product scope for SMEs and increase engagement with these businesses by serving more to their financial needs. Since 2015, Funding Societies has been serving our SMEs in Singapore and to date, we’ve disbursed close to over US$3.5 billion (~S$4.7 billion) through 5 million loan transactions across our five markets, including Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

As DPM Mr Lawrence Wong highlights, the future of Singapore’s economy this year may be mixed – with geopolitical risks and global inflationary pressures expected to recede – we are of the view that 2024 can present growth opportunities for companies like Funding Societies especially so in Southeast Asia, to collaborate with the government, complement FIs and continue to serve SMEs this year.