KUALA LUMPUR: A total of RM2.15 billion in Portfolio Guarantee Scheme (PG) for the small and medium enterprises (SME) industry has been arranged via a collaboration between AmBank Group and Credit Guarantee Corporation Malaysia Bhd (CGC) since 2015.
AmBank group chief executive officer (CEO) Datuk Sulaiman Mohd Tahir said the bank will have more collaborations with CGC in 2019, with the first one being PGs for an allocation of RM100 million in financing for Proton dealers.
“This is a term loan facility ranging from RM1 million to RM3 million, with 70 per cent of the loan guaranteed by CGC, and guarantee fee absorbed by AmBank. We are capping this first tranche at RM100 million for the first six months,” he said.
“We will be announcing more tranches in the future going by interest generated from this tranche. This is a natural progression as we already have RM2.15 billion worth of PG collaboration with CGC since we begun collaborating in 2015,” he added.
The loan facility will be made available for eligible Proton car dealers to upgrade their facilities to 3S and 4S centres, but the dealers must first meet in-house criterias that are collectively set by AmBank, CGC and Proton.
Sulaiman also shared that for financial year 2017, the bank saw its SME financing segment grew by 30 per cent.
“The results are not out yet for 2018 but we believe that we will be able to retain that 30 per cent growth for the SME segment,” he said.
According to Sulaiman, AmBank's approved SME financing portfolio is now at some RM4 billion, but not all has been disbursed.
Meanwhile, CGC president and CEO Datuk Mohd Zamree Mohd Ishak said his firm is targeting of approving some RM4.6 billion worth of guarantees and financing for this year.
When asked, Zamree said the strategy this year will be more brand-specific.
“We will see more of these brands-specific collaborations similar to this collaboration with AmBank where they are only financing Proton dealers,” he said.
Established in 1972, CGC is 78.7 per cent owned by Bank Negara Malaysia and had provided guarantees and financing amounting to RM70 billion to some 460,000 SMEs.