This file photo taken on June 27, 2017 shows the scenery on both sides of the Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong SAR. (PHOTO / XINHUA)

FundPark, a Hong Kong Special Administrative Region-based fintech firm that mainly facilitates financing for Chinese mainland cross-boundary e-commerce small and medium-sized enterprises, secured an additional $250 million in private lending from Goldman Sachs amid a widening global trade finance gap.

The increase doubled the asset-backed security facility that FundPark received from the global investment bank in 2022, to $500 million.

FundPark co-founder and CEO Anson Suen said that through this fresh liquidity injection, the fintech startup will scale its operations and provide more capital to its clients, with a focus on the Asian cross-border e-commerce sector

FundPark co-founder and CEO Anson Suen said that through this fresh liquidity injection, the fintech startup will scale its operations and provide more capital to its clients, with a focus on the Asian cross-border e-commerce sector.

Founded in 2016, FundPark has provided over $2 billion in funding to more than 16,500 SMEs.

According to data from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, SMEs are the engines of growth and innovation in the Asia-Pacific, accounting for over 97 percent of all businesses and employing over half of the workforce in economies across the region.

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However, given SMEs’ struggle to secure loans from banks, the global trade finance gap widened to $2.2 trillion last year from $1.7 trillion in 2020, figures from the Asian Development Bank show.

In contrast to the banks’ traditional lending model that requires collateral, FundPark provides SMEs with loans that are based on their cash flows, inventory, and receivables.

Suen said the company’s collateral-free loans are supported by its propriety artificial-intelligence-driven model, which can predict the borrowers’ business performance and assess their creditworthiness.

Mike Imam, CEO and co-founder at investment boutique Silverhorn Group, expressed optimism about FundPark’s business outlook. Last year, an official of the General Administration of Customs of China said the country’s cross-border e-commerce has become a new engine of the country’s foreign trade development, with its volume topping 2.11 trillion yuan ($293.3 billion) in 2022.

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“Its strong footprint in the region and in particular the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area puts the company at a unique advantage in benefiting from the region’s rapidly growing e-commerce sector,” Imam said.