CIMB Bank and eCommerce giant Lazada Malaysia have signed a partnership agreement to enable Lazada merchants to apply for small and medium enterprise (SME) loans.

Under the agreement, the bank offers Enterprise Clean Loans (ECL) to Lazada merchants to support the expansion of Malaysian SMEs.

“The collaboration is a joint effort to provide a holistic solution and added convenience to empower local SMEs to grow their business,” the companies say in a joint statement. “The customised ECL, non-collateral financing with competitive interest rates, offers financing of up to RM300,000 [US$75,000] a company with loan tenures of up to five years.”

CIMB Bank is the consumer-banking arm of CIMB Group, offering retail and commercial banking services. CIMB Group chief executive Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Aziz says the collaboration is another initiative that strives to meet the evolving and growing digital needs of the customers, particularly in the eCommerce space.

“Apart from contributing to the development of the Malaysian SME sector, which is expected to contribute 41 per cent to the country’s GDP by 2020, we are also enabling more merchants to embrace digital banking.”

He says the bank also offers SMEs business advice through digital services.

Lazada Malaysia CEO Hans-Peter Ressel says the agreement will bring “significant synergies” by giving Lazada’s 12,000-odd merchants the option to enhance their online business.