SINGAPORE - Media OutReach - 14 November 2019 - CIMB Bank Berhad, Singapore branch ("CIMB") today announced its collaboration with SESAMi Holding and Capital Match, to finance the SESAMi trading community's invoices digitally under an automated workflow.  

Photo: From left to right - Mr Sharath Singh, Commercial Director of Capital Match; Mr Ong Teck Soon, Chairman and Group CEO of SESAMi Holding; Mr Victor Lee, Deputy CEO of CIMB Singapore and CEO of CIMB Group Commercial Banking; Ms Lai Ven Li, Head of Corporate Banking of CIMB Singapore; Mr Desmond Loh, Co-Head of Transaction Banking of CIMB Singapore

SESAMi Holding, an e-procurement platform in Singapore serving the supply chain needs for customers like Singtel, SATS, SIA, SRC and more, acquired Capital Match, an invoice financing marketplace with operations in Singapore and Hong Kong.  Mr Ong Teck Soon, Chairman and Group CEO of SESAMi Holding said, "SESAMi's integrated procure-to-pay and supply chain financing allows the suppliers to access lower cost of funds by leveraging on large corporate buyers' good credit rating." Suppliers on SESAMi will be paid immediately on their outstanding invoices on the platform within two business days as soon as they are on-boarded on to the supply-chain financing program.

Said Mr Victor Lee, Deputy CEO of CIMB Singapore and CEO of CIMB Group Commercial Banking, "Customer experience is one of our primary focus and the collaboration with SESAMi-Capital Match presents another scalable avenue for us as we are constantly striving to digitize our services and offerings to better service our banking clients. This is aligned with the government's framework for e-invoices and call for companies to keep up with innovation. CIMB is very proud to be part of this."

Capital Match, the e-financing arm leading this initiative will be reaching out to the supplier community to initiate this program. "The funding process will be extremely sped up through leveraging on our Early Payment System (EPS) which was launched earlier this year for the SESAMi supplier community. With the supply-chain financing, suppliers only need to submit minimal documents to be on-boarded under the program and this will facilitate a smooth and simple process for the suppliers," added Mr Sharath Singh, Commercial Director of Capital Match.

The process of onboarding onto this supply chain financing program is simplified, with no need to submit invoices as the e-invoices can be selected for financing via the SESAMi platform.

Added Ms Lai Ven Li, Head of Corporate Banking of CIMB Singapore, "Once the account is set up under the e-supply chain financing program, technology enables working capital funding to be promptly transferred to our customers. We want our financing package to be attractive to provide our customers a positive experience and access to new financing options. Our objective is to ensure a cost-efficient solution and non-recourse working capital funding option that supports our customers' growth."

About CIMB Group

CIMBGroup is one of ASEAN's leading universal banking groups and is Malaysia'ssecond largest financial services provider, by assets. It offers consumerbanking, commercial banking, investment banking, Islamic banking and assetmanagement products and services. Headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, the Group ispresent in all 10 ASEAN nations (Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand,Cambodia, Brunei, Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos and Philippines). Beyond ASEAN, theGroup has market presence in China, Hong Kong, India, Sri Lanka, Korea, the USand UK.

CIMBGroup has the most extensive retail branch network in ASEAN approximately of740 branches as at 30 June 2019. CIMB Group's investment banking arm is alsoone of the largest Asia Pacific-based investment banks, offering amongst themost comprehensive research coverage around of 600 stocks in the region.

CIMBGroup operates its business through three main brand entities, CIMB Bank, CIMBInvestment Bank and CIMB Islamic. CIMB Group is also the 92.5% shareholder ofBank CIMB Niaga in Indonesia, and 94.8% shareholder of CIMB Thai in Thailand.

CIMBGroup is listed on Bursa Malaysia via CIMB Group Holdings Berhad. It had amarket capitalisation of approximately RM52.3 billion as at 30 June 2019. TheGroup has around 36,000 employees located in 16 countries.

AboutSESAMi

SESAMi(Holding) ("SESAMi") is Asia's leading E-Procurement &E-Marketplace service provider. Its integrated suite of cloud-based procurementtechnology, domain knowledge and industry best practices adoption help createscompetitive advantage for our esteemed clients on their Strategic Sourcing andProcure-to-Pay business processes. Since its inception in 1999, SESAMi hasbuilt a wide range of customer portfolio and enables more than 5,000 buyerusers to process over 60,000 of E-Tenders/E-RFQs quotes and $6 billion worth ofe-POs value annually to over 20,000 local and overseas supplier base.   

SESAMi'sacquisition of Singapore's leading financing platform (Capital Match) inNovember 2018 allows the company to extend a fully integrated supply chainfinancing solution to corporates and their suppliers in a more timely,automated and cost-efficient manner.