Lending

New Union Achieves MAS CMS License; Anticipates S$2 Million Deal Flow To Be Launched

Crowdlending platform, New Union (新联在线), announces that it has been awarded the full Capital Market Service license (“CMS”) by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (“MAS”) and has lined up a robust deal flow pipeline of about S$2 million that will be made available soon.

One of the first and largest debt-based crowdfunding platforms in Singapore, New Union provides alternative business financing for small-medium enterprises (“SMEs”) in Singapore, China, Taiwan (Republic of China), Cambodia and the Philippines. Since its inception in 2013, New Union has to-date raised S$2.6 billion for businesses in Asia-Pacific (S$127.5 million excluding China).

Eddie Lee

Co-Founder and Group Chief Executive Officer of New Union, Mr Eddie Lee (李记榜), said,

“This is a watershed milestone for New Union – Singapore is known within the region for her stringent regulatory standards and for being a globally leading financial hub. Being accreditated by the MAS lends us credibility as we continue to embark on our growth quest to connect the ASEAN markets, creating a “New Union” for new-age SME financing.”

For the last year and a half, New Union had to turn away loan requests from SMEs amidst the application process with the regulator, to focus its efforts on obtaining the CMS license. Concurrently, New Union had also fine-tuned its innovative financing solutions to offer SMEs attractive value propositions, such as building a proprietary data analytics system for efficient funding, while identifying accretive investment opportunities for its pool of investors.

Despite its hiatus, New Union has continued to keep SMEs and entrepreneurs engaged, accumulating a significant S$2 million deal flow that will be progressively offered to investors following a robust due diligence process to protect investors’ interests. This pipeline of deals spans across various sectors such as FMCG Trading, Interior Design, Services and Real Estate Development, as New Union continues to evaluate new fundraising requests.

New Union’s maiden deal offered to investors today for an interior design firm received an overwhelming response and was snapped up within 7 minutes.

“We have over the years built a strong investor following, as well as rapport with SMEs, allowing us to marry interests of the two stakeholders to achieve optimal fundraising results.”

“Having ran a small-medium business myself for the past 16 years before co-founding New Union, we resonate with and understand the challenges resources-strapped SMEs face. Beyond looking at financial statements and balance sheets, we employ a unique approach to understand the business needs and ambitions of the SMEs we work with. This also allows us to identify choice investment opportunities for our investors,”

added Mr Lee.

Having obtained the CMS license, and in line with its vision to connect local businesses across ASEAN, New Union will continue to deepen its relationship with local SMEs in Singapore, and thereafter evaluate collaborations with reputable local partners to explore expansion opportunities into new markets such as Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia or Vietnam. It will concurrently keep a look out for possible synergistic collaborations with financial institutions.

Featured image via https://www.newunion.sg