Dear Investors,
Upon the global COVID-19 breakout, we released a few measures in March to manage the risk on our portfolio. With the Government’s recent announcement of the ‘Circuit Breaker’ and tightened safe distancing measures, we have implemented further course of action following the economic and social impact of this crisis:
A. Smaller Note Size
The sharp contraction in the economy has created a huge impact on businesses’ ability to make repayments. Hence, we will issue notes of smaller sizes so as to contain the risk of non-repayment
B. Reduce Loans to Companies that Rely Heavily on China’s Resources
Although China has its people returning to work, we expect their supply chains to still be experiencing trickle effects from the widespread disruption of business and consumer activity from the past few months. We are slowly opening up to China but will be very cautious with lending to industries and companies with a large percentage of their revenue coming from the country.
C. Reduce Loans to Companies that Rely Heavily on Malaysia’s Resources
Malaysia’s national lockdown is expected to impact the majority of its business activities. While our Malaysian counterpart is still operational and issuing loans, we will reduce issuing loans to local businesses which rely heavily on Malaysia to keep afloat.
Singapore is largely dependent on Malaysia for resources and manpower. We expect local businesses to be affected by Singapore’s Circuit Breaker mandate and Malaysia’s Restriction Movement Control order. Hence, our credit team will be very careful when assessing note applications from such businesses.
D. New Focus on Industries in Demand
We will skew our focus to industries that see an increase in demand during this period. E.g. Cleaning & Maintenance, Medical, Delivery services
This is not the easiest period for any of us. Nonetheless, we will take this time to leverage on data science to identify any possible uptrends that we can use to recover from this impact in future. Should you have any questions, we are happy to answer them at invest@fundingsocieties.com, or simply start a live chat with us. In the meantime, please take care and stay safe.