GHL Systems Berhad (GHL) and Aspirasi, a digital financing platform and fintech provider under Axiata Digital have formed a partnership to provide SMEs and micro-entrepreneurs in the country with digital access to GHL’s new financing business.
This news follows their announcement of receiving operating licenses in Malaysia and Thailand to provide lending services.
The collaboration aims to narrow the financial inclusion gap for the underserved community by tapping into Aspirasi’s platform which offers a fully digital and complete financing application journey, covering on-boarding and merchant scoring.
GHL will market its financing solutions to its existing merchant base with collection managed via its merchant settlement process. While the partnership is focused on Malaysia for now, there are plans to expand to other countries in the near future.
“GHL is very excited to tie up with Aspirasi and by extension, Axiata Digital. Together we have an extensive presence across ASEAN which means further collaboration in the region. GHL’s broad footprint of 138,800 TPA payment touchpoints across ASEAN, coupled with Axiata Digital’s expanding offerings within the digital finance space, will enable us to bridge the payment and credit gap among the financially underserved within the 650 million ASEAN population”,
Mr Danny Leong, Group CEO of GHL stated confidently.
“We are pleased to partner with GHL Systems Berhad, a leading payment service provider. Together, we have a shared vision of simplifying financial access for SMEs and micro-entrepreneurs. By leveraging our digital platform and GHL’s extensive footprint of TPA touchpoints in Malaysia, merchants will be able to enjoy quick and seamless financing to assist them on their dynamic journey of business growth,”
said Sheyantha Abeykoon, Executive Director of Aspirasi.
GHL’s reach of over 101,500 TPA (Transaction Payment Acquistion) points in Malaysia, gives it an edge with its good grasp of merchant’s e-payment acceptance behaviour. This provides GHL with an advantage to devise an optimum financing plan for its group of merchants.
GHL group’s ASEAN TPA payment touchpoints grew by 20%, from 116,200 in 2018 to 138,800 in 2019, which also translated to a 39% surge in Transaction Payment Value (TPV) of RM 13.9 billion processed during 2019. This strong growth owes much to thriving next generation e-payments, empowering cashless acceptance across its merchant base and the momentum is expected to continue as going cashless becomes more mainstream.
The introduction of financing services, in addition to e-payments, bill & loan collections, and mobile credit top-ups, will enable GHL group to better serve its merchant base and partners in offering an increasingly growing suite of e-services.
GHL group piloted its financing business in Malaysia and its nano-finance lending service in Thailand in fourth quarter 2019 and will pilot its financing operations in the Philippines soon thus expanding its financing business to three ASEAN countries by 2Q 2020.
