Maybank Singapore loans doubled over 9 months

Maybank Singapore doubled its loan portfolio, mostly with new customers, under Spring and IE Singapore Financing Schemes from December 2008. Eighty percent of loan applicants are new to Maybank.

The main surge came from Bridging Loans offered under the Local Enterprise Financial Scheme or LEFS.

LEFS Bridging Loan constitutes more than 50 percent of the total amount of the loan applications received under the scheme from December 2008 to March 2009. Loans offered under the Loan Insurance Scheme (LIS) grew twice as much in the same period. For the LIS loan portfolio, the facilities, close to 70 percent are for domestic and import purposes and the rest for export market.

On average, 65 percent of the customers who applied for the government-backed loans are from the general commerce sector. The remaining 35 percent are mainly from the service, manufacturing and construction-related industries.

Mr Lee Hong Khim, Head of Business Banking, Maybank Singapore, said: “In total, we plan to expand our government-backed loans portfolio two-fold by 2010. We expect demand to come mainly from customers involved in general commerce with 80 percent for domestic consumption.”

Mr Lee added: “Whilst we want to achieve our target, we hope to work even more closely with IE and Spring Singapore to speed up the process of approvals so that the financial needs of the SMEs are met quickly.”