GHL Systems Berhad (GHL) and the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) today announced a new partnership through the i3 Program, which is funded by MetLife Foundation, to focus on designing affordable financial solutions for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Malaysia.

“Together with the technical know-hows and experience of UNCDF, we are excited to extend a broad range of financial products and services to the MSMEs segment,”

said GHL Group CEO, Danny Leong.

With their already strong footprint of reaching over 244,000 payment touchpoints across Malaysia, GHL provides beyond just payments, adding an array of value added services to their product offerings; credit, insurance and savings. The partnership aims to improve the financial health of these MSMEs, while successfully maximizing their competitiveness and profitability.

“Financial health is an important lens as we think of re-building the economy. Once that process begins, investing in the resilience of MSMEs should be at the core of our efforts and the partnership, which GHL aims to do just that.”

said Jaspreet Singh, UNCDF Global Innovation Manager.

MDEC’s Vice President of Fintech & Islamic Digital Economy, Norhizam Kadir sees the collaboration between MDEC, UNCDF, Metlife Foundation and GHL as the kind of impactful private-public partnership that MDEC has always strived for, especially in order to foster better financial inclusion.

“It also reaffirms MDEC’s aim in connecting and enabling the ecosystem to be an inclusive digital economy by driving the adoption of the 3As—financial products that are ‘Alternative, Accessible & Affordable’—via innovative digital platforms to the unbanked and underserved population in Malaysia,”

said Norhizam.

SME is the backbone of the Malaysian economy. More than 98% of all business establishments in Malaysia are SMEs and they contribute to more than 38% of the country’s GDP while employing a large number of low-income Malaysians.