Alibaba Links Up With Capify For SME Lending

On the heels of the announcement of alternative lender Capify’s global rebranding – a move that combined four alt-lending platforms in four jurisdictions across the globe – the company is hitting the ground running. Reports Tuesday (July 21) revealed that Capify has teamed up with Chinese eCommerce conglomerate Alibaba to boost small business financing services in Australia.

According to reports, the partnership will promote SMEs’ access to working capital from Capify so those businesses can, in turn, procure goods from suppliers on the Alibaba platform.

“We want to help make financing as accessible and efficient as possible for the 1.9 million Australian small- and mid-sized enterprises that do business through Alibaba.com,” said Michael Mang, Alibaba’s head of business development and marketing for the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and North Africa regions.

He added that linking up with Capify is an effort to “help Australian SMEs to address their financing challenges and therefore encourage them to engage and capture opportunities from the global trading scene to further grow their business.”

The deal with Alibaba follows the announcement that Australia-based AUSvance, along with three other platforms in the U.K., U.S. and Canada, have all rolled into the Capify name, an industry first in terms of geographical reach, the company said.

This isn’t the first time Alibaba has partnered with an alternative lending platform to strengthen sales for its suppliers. Earlier this year the company announced a tie-up with U.K. alternative lenders iwoca and ezbob, also as a way to fund U.K. SMEs’ business with Chinese suppliers.



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