One of Asia’s most established supply chain finance tech solution providers, Linklogis, has announced that it has launched a branch office in Singapore.
The new office aims to support Linklogis’ plans to open a virtual bank in Singapore in early 2022, by using the digital banking permit it received from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in December of last year.
At present, Linklogis is in the process of forming a new Singapore-based business entity, called Olea (which is based on blockchain or DLT), as part of a joint initiative with Standard Chartered. Olea is a completely digitized trade finance origination and distribution platform that is focused on bringing together institutional investors looking for opportunities in an alternative asset class with businesses needing supply chain financing.
Charles Song, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Linklogis.
“Singapore is a strategic jurisdiction for international trade and a place where we have already created important joint ventures. The timing of our arrival in Singapore corresponds to the ramp-up of these joint ventures” — namely, Olea with Standard Chartered, and the future digital bank in partnership with Greenland Group.”
Established in 2016 with initial support coming from Tencent, Linklogis has managed to cement a position as a major provider of supply chain finance tech in China and is now focused one expanding operations into Southeast Asia, before expanding globally.
Song added:
“Singapore is one of the region’s most important financial hubs. It provides the perfect setting to offer trade finance programs, with a regulatory environment that is straightforward and digital-friendly.”
The firm secured HKD 8.967 billion (appr. $1.153 billion) via its April 2021 Hong Kong initial public offering, from investors such as BlackRock, EDBI (the investment unit of Singapore’s Economic Development Board) and Fidelity.
Linklogis focused on offering innovative tech for enhancing supply chain finance processes — the firm’s Cloud-native solutions improve the payment cycle of supply chain transactions and digitalize the workflow of supply chain finance.
Song continued:
“Linklogis serves both corporate clients and financial institutions, as well as SMEs. To serve our clients, we strive to leverage our strong tech capabilities to deliver relevant, reliable products.”
He also mentioned:
“Tech is our greatest advantage. For many fintech companies, blockchain is merely a buzzword, but Linklogis possesses very real capabilities in this area. Over 60% of our 900 employees are developers. The size of our tech team is unprecedented —and the speed at which we’re developing new products is quite astonishing.”
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has evaluated the existing funding gap for small businesses at $5.2 trillion, with the majority of that demand in Asia. Linklogis says that it plans to use innovative tech to address part of that critical gap.
Song also shared:
“We look forward to working with Singaporean companies of varying sizes to streamline supply chain finance and take advantage of the suite of tech tools we offer to help businesses trade more efficiently.”