KUALA LUMPUR: Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani announced that the government is establishing a co-investment fund (CIF) with RM50 million from existing grants to be co-invested in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with private investors through equity crowdfunding (ECF) and peer-to-peer (P2P).
Johari said the Securities Commission (SC) will assist in setting up the fund, and defining the co-investment criteria for both equity and debt-based financing. He said once the fund is operationalised, it will co-invest in ECF and P2P financing campaigns which have managed to attract the required amount of private funding and other criteria.
“Through this co-investment fund, we hope to provide efficient mechanism for shared partnership and responsibility between Malaysian investors and the government to co-invest and grow our SMEs,” he said during his keynote address at the SCxSC Digital Finance Conference 2017 here today.
At its flagship FinTech event, SC chairman Tan Sri Ranjit Ajit Singh in his speech outlined the progress made in digital markets since the commission revealed its Digital Markets Strategy.He said the strategy aims to enhance access to financing, increase investor participation, augment the institutional market, and deveop synergistic ecosystems.
According to SC, the equity crowdfunding (ECF) and peer to peer (P2P) financing platforms have funded 450 campaigns, raising a total of RM50 million to meet the financing needs of the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
For ECF in particular, more than 70 per cent of the issuers have women or youth as founders, with 40 per cent of the investors under the age of 35.
The SC has also launched its Digital Investment Management framework this year, paving the road for automated discretionary portfolio management services to be offered in Malaysia SC expects the first digital investment manager to be licensed in the first half of 2018.
Source : NST