(23 March 2022 – Singapore) Temasek- backed SME lending platform Validus will acquire the loan portfolio of Citi Singapore's small business banking unit.
CitiBusiness, which offered small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) cash management and credit facilities, was closed in August last year – two months after the decision was announced.
This is the first time a fintech in Southeast Asia is acquiring an established bank’s loan portfolio and customer base.
This acquisition comes on top of several strategic moves by Validus recently, including the acquisition of KlearCard, a business payments and expense management technology platform.
“With access to robust ecosystems of alternative credit data and solid data analytics capabilities… (we have been able to maintain) extremely low non-performing loan rates of below 1 percent on a group level,” said Validus co-founder and executive chairman Vikas Nahata.