Singapore’s Hong Leong Finance Ltd., founded in 1961, sees an opportunity to find new customers and reinvent themselves as a tech savvy leader to the nation’s new business.
The firm is planning to partner with financial-technology firms and seek a joint application for one of the licenses, according to Ang Tang Chor, it’s President. Mr. Ang added, “We have the customer base, we have the reach but we don’t have the platform”.
The firm, which still uses faxes in parts of its application process, is also looking to revamp in other ways, such as by introducing payment cards for expatriate workers, and instant credit risk assessments for car loans, The Business Times reported.
Mr. Ang denied to disclose the identity of the financial institutions that he’s in talks with for the license but told that many financial institutions are going for solo applications.
“The fintechs have one advantage: they lend against data,” Mr Ang said. “That is now slowly becoming more and more important to financial institutions” which have traditionally used other criteria such as company balance sheets, he added.
