KUALA LUMPUR: Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) today announced six registered peer-to-peer (P2P) financing platform operators, making Malaysia the first Asean country to regulate P2P financing.
The six registered operators are B2B FinPAL, Ethis Kapital, FundedByMe Malaysia, ManagePay Services, Modalku Ventures and Peoplender.
These firms which are set to be operational in 2017 will help widen funding avenues for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Back in 2015, the SC was also the first in Asean to put in place a regulated framework for equity crowd funding (ECF).
Since then, 11 of the Malaysian SMEs have raised a total of RM8 million through the six ECF platforms.
Second Finance Minister Datuk Johari Abdul Ghani later told reporters that this crowd funding platform could also potentially be adopted by the government as it is proven to be more transparent.
"The government are already giving grants and in the future, we can potentially look into similar platform such as this in order to create transperancy with the people," he said.
He had earlier said that the potential for Malaysia within the digital economy space is huge given that global P2P financing had helped raised US$25 billion in 2015.
"It is estimated that this segment will grow to US$96 billion in 2025. Going with that, Malaysia is also set to get a slice of that pie since Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has declared that 2017 to be the year of the Internet Economy for Malaysia," said Johari.
To meet this digitisation call, the SC is also set to introduce the Digital Investment Services framework next year which will allow approved licensees to offer automated discretionary portfolio management which is more cost-effective, accessible and convenient channel for investors to manage and grow their wealth.