CapBay Passes RM6 Billion in SME Financing as P2P Lending Goes Mainstream in Malaysia
Malaysian financing platform CapBay says it has now provided more than RM6 billion in working capital to Malaysian small and medium enterprises over its first ten years. The milestone lands just as Budget 2027 puts fresh public money behind peer-to-peer (P2P) financing, a sign that this once-niche channel is becoming a regular part of how Malaysian SMEs pay suppliers and staff.
What CapBay announced
CapBay runs supply chain finance and P2P financing platforms. Instead of asking a business owner to pledge property, it looks at the company’s trading activity: whether its invoices are genuine and how reliably its customers pay. The company says this lets it approve funding in days rather than the months a traditional loan can take.
According to the company and its published figures:
- Cumulative financing has passed RM6 billion (its website lists about RM6.1 billion).
- More than 2,700 SMEs have been funded, spread across more than 20 industries.
- Around 45,000 financing notes or transactions have been issued.
Co-founder and group CEO Ang Xing Xian marked the decade by recalling that the platform’s very first deal was a RM6,000 facility for a sole proprietor supplying lab equipment to a local university. CapBay says it now also channels capital through the Securities Commission’s Malaysia Co-Investment Fund (MyCIF) and the Strategic Co-Investment Fund (CoSIF), and works with SME Corp Malaysia, TERAJU and MDEC. It plans to expand these public-private partnerships and to keep refining its AI-based credit scoring.
Why it matters: SMEs still struggle to get paid on time
For many Malaysian SMEs, the real problem is not profit but cash flow. A supplier may deliver goods today and wait 60 or 90 days for a large customer to pay, while wages and rent fall due every month. Invoice-based financing turns those unpaid invoices into cash now, which is why it has grown quickly among firms that lack property to offer banks as collateral.
Official data shows the trend is broad, not limited to one platform. The Securities Commission’s Annual Report 2025 shows that alternative financing channels raised RM5.7 billion for MSMEs and mid-tier companies in 2025, up 39% from the year before. P2P financing made up RM2.8 billion of that, compared with RM2.5 billion in 2024.
What Budget 2027 changes
Two Budget 2027 measures are aimed squarely at this market:
- RM270 million in new co-investment funds to draw more private money into P2P financing and equity crowdfunding platforms. Under the co-investment model, government money invests alongside private investors, which can make each deal larger and more attractive.
- A flat RM10 stamp duty on P2P financing agreements will continue from 1 January 2027 to 31 December 2030, keeping paperwork costs low for small borrowers.
For SMEs, this should mean more funding available on platforms and fewer cost barriers per deal. For retail investors who buy financing notes on these platforms, it means more deals to choose from, though returns are never guaranteed and a borrower can still default.
What it means for merchants and suppliers
The link to payments is closer than it looks. Supply chain finance works best when invoices, purchase orders and payment records are digital and easy to verify. As more Malaysian businesses move to e-invoicing and pay each other through instant bank transfers, platforms like CapBay get cleaner data to judge risk, and borrowers can be approved faster. In practice, a small supplier with a strong record of being paid by reliable customers may find it easier to borrow, even without a long banking history.
What to watch
- How quickly the RM270 million co-investment allocation is deployed, and through which platforms.
- Whether P2P volumes in 2026 keep growing at the pace seen in 2025 when the SC publishes its next figures.
- How the Securities Commission balances faster SME funding with investor protection as more retail money flows into financing notes.
- Whether more platforms follow CapBay in using AI and trade data, rather than collateral, to decide who gets credit.
New to how money moves in Malaysia? Read How Malaysia’s Payment System Works and PayNet and the Regulators.
Sources: Fintech News Malaysia (October 2026); Focus Malaysia (October 2026); CapBay (October 2026).
