Lending

SME Lender Validus and Citi Set Up US$100 Million Securitisation Facility

Southeast Asian SME growth financing platform Validus and Citibank announced the establishment of a US$100 million securitisation facility. This will be collateralised by SME loans originated by Validus in Singapore.

In March this year, Validus announced that it had inked a deal to acquire CitiBusiness’ loan portfolio in Singapore.

The facility is also supported by First Plus Asset Management, a Singapore-based multi-asset investment manager focused on Asia structured credit and equities.

Since the facility was established in the second quarter, Validus said that it had doubled its borrower base in Singapore and grew its loan book by 60% across the group over the same time period.

Validus added that it has also grown its monthly volumes by over 8x and tripled its loan book over the last 24 months.

Since its launch in 2015, Validus has disbursed over US$1.6 billion across more than 65,000 loans to small businesses in Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand.

The company is currently raising its Series C equity round for an undisclosed amount.

The combination of the securitisation facility and Series C equity funding will further drive Validus’ expansion plans as it starts to introduce neo-banking products in other Southeast Asia markets.

The company is backed by FMO, Vertex Growth, Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India, AddVentures by SCG, K3 Ventures, Openspace Ventures and VinaCapital Ventures.

Milena Naitoh

Milena Naitoh, Head of Corporate Development at Validus said,

“As Validus continues to extend its position as a leading all-in-one SME finance platform in Southeast Asia, this securitised lending structure, together with a diversified financing and product strategy, will enable us to grow at a much greater scale.

We are honoured that Citi has chosen to collaborate with us on this landmark securitised lending transaction with a fintech start-up in Southeast Asia, and we are looking at replicating this transaction playbook across other markets.”