Malayan Bank starts SME-friendly services

Malayan Bank has forged a partnership with Singapore-Business.Com to create an Internet platform that would cater to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Philippines.

Malayan Bank executive director Jay de Luzuriaga said the joint venture would help the bank corner a sizeable portion of the country’s SME market.

It is part of the expansion program in time for the celebration of its 10th year of operations (on July 1, 2006) in the Philippine banking industry.

"We have long been engaged in traditional banking activities, including the contract-to-sell (CTS) real estate financing and related mortgage markets. This time, we shall bolster and complement our existing revenue streams by venturing more into non-traditional banking approaches such as community development banking, which is a derivative of our new innovations paradigm combining the cultivating of communities with incremental innovation initiatives, and covers both physical and virtual communities, allowing us to also provide such online services. This will also expand our marketing reach virtually," De Luzuriaga added.

Singapore-Business.Com is supported by the Singapore Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (ASME) and the Singapore Business Network International. It is the leading online trade association and SME portal in Singapore.

On the other hand, ASME is the first business association to have established and managed Singapore’s first Enterprise Development Centre and Regional Enterprise Centre, and it is the association of choice by government agencies during private-public collaborations on SME-centric initiatives in Singapore.

Malayan Bank is in the process of customizing and adapting the Singapore-Business.Com online platform to the Philippine market. Expecting to corner at least 30 percent of its existing 13,000 client base, Malayan Bank is expected to launch its specialized SME service within this year.

Aside from GMA Network, the other major stockholders of Malayan Bank are Majalco Inc., a real estate and financial services group; and, Liberty Flourmills Commodities Corp., a conglomerate in flour milling and trading. The bank has an authorized capital stock of P1 billion.