Malaysian food and beverage (F&B) supply solution providers Food Market Hub and Supplybunny have launched the country’s first business-to-business (B2B) embedded financing programme. The partnership sees Food Market Hub connecting its 3,000 F&B operators with 800 suppliers on Supplybunny through its integrated solutions powered by Funding Societies — Southeast Asia’s largest unified small and medium enterprise (SME) digital financing platform.
This programme allows the F&B operators to receive inventory orders from the suppliers in the ecosystem. Upon receiving the delivery, they continue have the option to defer payment for up to 30 days. The embedded financing allows suppliers to receive payment upon fulfilling inventory orders. With this initiative, F&B operators and suppliers get to manage their cash flow better. F&B operators would also benefit from better management of their working and rotating capital as they focus on sustaining or growing their businesses.
Food Market Hub CEO Anthony See said that Malaysia’s F&B industry is projected to contribute RM35.2 billion (US$7.76 billion) to the country’s GDP with double-digit growth of 22% recorded in 2022. Despite the healthy projection, the country needs to prepare for possible recession and in such a situation, SMEs depend a lot on their cash flow for their survival. Food services operators via this programme can enjoy zero-collateral financing up to RM50,000 (US$11,015), fast processing within 14 days and minimal documentation requirement.
The programme will also contribute to Malaysia’s short- and medium-term policy on food security.
Getting direct and easy access to financing is vital to SMEs as they scale up their operations while meeting growing demand during the post-pandemic period. Funding Societies can serve creditworthy, underserved SMEs in the F&B industry.
