Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have been ear-marked as one of Malaysia’s key drivers for economic growth. These businesses are increasingly expanding beyond local shores. As they expand, these SMEs face a myriad of challenges and one of these challenges is access to financial solutions that meet all their needs.
As such, selecting the right bank is vital. Businesses want to build a long-term relationship with a bank that understands their business and its financial needs. SMEs also want a bank with a solid reputation, high responsiveness to customer’s needs, ability to explain and implement banking solutions for their customers, and flexible towards customising those solutions.
Providing Islamic Banking and Conventional Banking
One such bank is CIMB Bank, which provides both conventional and Islamic business banking products and services for micro-enterprises, SMEs, and mid-sized corporations. Products and services offered include asset and working capital financing, trade financing, factoring and leasing.
Businesses can take advantage of CIMB Biz-Channel, a secure online banking platform that provides SMEs with holistic online business solutions. With CIMB Biz-Channel, SMEs are able to run their business smoothly and cost-effectively. SMEs will find the e-payroll facility extremely useful and convenient, as it eliminates delays and risks associated with traditional salary crediting. With easy access to its simplified salary crediting facilities, businesses can credit their employees’ contributions to four statutory bodies namely the Employees Provident Fund, Inland Revenue Board, SOCSO and ZAKAT. There are also enhanced security measures which include personal approval limit, multiple access levels, firewall administration system and an audit trail.
CIMB Bank is a popular choice with many SMEs due to its strong branch network, wide product range and comprehensive customer support. Additionally, the bank’s affiliation with the Small and Medium Enterprise Corporation Malaysia (SME Corp) enables SMEs to be linked-up with numerous training and development programmes as well as incentives to facilitate their growth.
CIMB Bank understands the financial needs of SMEs to run their businesses smoothly and is continuously coming up with innovative and value-add conventional and Islamic financing solutions to meet customers’ current and future requirements. Some of the solutions are:
(a) Term Loan
The term loan facility offers SMEs financing services for the purchase of fixed assets, capital expenditure, working capital, bridging financing and other purposes.
(b) Overdraft
Businesses can take advantage of the overdraft facility that allows the drawing of cheques in excess of the funds available in the account without a fixed repayment schedule.
(c) Revolving Credit
The Bank also extends revolving credit to businesses when funds are required for short-term periods. This facility provides SMEs the flexibility of paying back the principal amount in full, making a partial payment or renewing the facility for another short term tenure.
(d) Trade Facilities
CIMB Bank provides a comprehensive range of trade finance solutions to businesses to expedite international trade and to mitigate risks .
(e) Special Financing
There is also special financing available – both in conventional and Islamic packages:
• Business Premises Loans (BPL)
CIMB Bank makes it simple and affordable to own a business premise. Whether it is a completed property or a property under construction, the BPL comes with special low rates and extended tenure up to 20 years.
• PRO Finance
This financing is catered for professionals and can be used for working capital, business expansion, asset acquisition requirements, renovation of premises and capital expenditure.
• Petropack
The Petropack package provides the perfect financial solution for new and existing petrol stations. It is available for all petroleum brands such as Petronas, Shell, CALTEX, BHP and Exxon Mobil. Whether the need is for working capital or financing for a convenience store, fixed asset or even a performance guarantee for the petrol station, packages can be tailor-made to accommodate the needs of businesses.
In addition to the wide range of financing facilities as mentioned above, the established private equity and venture capital arm within CIMB Group would also be able to prospect for SMEs which require longer term funding requirements to sustain and grow their business.
CIMB Bank’s business banking division serves its customers through a network of 55 business centers in Malaysia. The bank’s retail network of approximately 1,150 branches is the largest in the Southeast Asian region, and SMEs operating in ASEAN-member countries can leverage on the expertise and strong local linkages of the bank’s Regional Business Help Desks to help them grow their businesses further.