Funding Societies partners Carsome to reach underserved local used car dealers

• 1,600 used car dealers under Carsome could potentially benefit
• Registered dealers are eligible for up to 70% of the transaction value of used cars

FUNDING Societies Malaysia, a peer-to-peer (P2P) financing platform, has announced its partnership with Carsome, a used car trading platform to offer dealer financing, a financing product offered to local car dealers for the purchase of used motor vehicles. Through this collaboration, 1,600 used car dealers under Carsome could potentially benefit from a total financing amount of US$200 million.

The partnership is in line with both platforms’ mutual aim to empower Malaysia’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with short-term financing to help expand their businesses, particularly the underserved local used car dealers.

Registered used car dealers on Carsome’s platform are eligible for financing of up to 70% of the transaction value of the used cars via a seamless and fast process.

One of the main advantages of the dealer financing offered by Funding Societies is that it is open for application to any type of businesses, from sole proprietorships and partnerships to private limited (Sdn Bhd) companies, through Carsome.

Almost half of the one million car units sold in 2018 are used cars, which points to a high demand for the industry.

However, used car dealers often face issues when it comes to obtaining capital to expand their businesses as traditional financing avenues do not usually cater to many used car dealers that are sole proprietors.

This is where the partnership fills the gap by providing financing opportunity for used car dealers to purchase inventory in a seamless and hassle-free approach.

Funding Societies Malaysia co-founder and chief executive officer Wong Kah Meng, said, “Our tailor-made dealer financing product addresses the pain points revolving around used car financing traditionally.

“For instance, the requirement of 100% upfront payment by the SME, cumbersome documentation of business operations, among others, hinders these SMEs from expanding their business with limited cash flow. This is where we come in by providing a seamless process and, through automation and technology, speed up and lower the cost to serve the financing needs of these SMEs in a viable manner.”

“We have seen great traction for dealer financing to date, where we have been partnering with several car bidding platforms. Nevertheless, we are very much looking forward to this partnership with Carsome as this will surely help us to reach out further and serve many more SMEs under their platform,” added Wong.

Carsome chief executive officer and co-founder Eric Cheng, said, "We are excited to work with Funding Societies to provide our dealers with a seamless financing product to help to grow and scale their businesses, together with us.

“As the region’s largest used car trading platform, Carsome has been at the forefront of driving the automotive industry forward, and the partnership with Funding Societies will help our mission to better serve the users of our platform."

As part of the collaboration, Carsome will inspect the condition and verify the value and identity of the used cars before putting them up for bidding.

By onboarding used car dealers with proven track record based on their repayment behaviour, business history and performance with Carsome, Funding Societies aims to better manage the risk to benefit their investors.

As the largest P2P financing platform in Southeast Asia, Funding Societies connects local SMEs with individuals and institutional investors through a digital marketplace, thereby significantly increasing access to financing for the SME sector.

Since introducing dealer financing, Funding Societies has disbursed more than RM30 million across more than 1,500 notes as of November 2019. Regionally, it has reached close to RM3 billion in total disbursed working capital to SMEs across Southeast Asia since its establishment.