KUALA LUMPUR (March 18): Public Bank Bhd and Carsome on Friday (March 18) inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate on car financing.

In a statement, Public Bank said it will be able to provide stock-financing and end-financing arrangement for the vehicles to its member Car Dealers and individual purchasers who have won the bids through Carsome’s online platform, as well as to extend wholesome financial products/or services to Carsome’s customers.

Carsome is Southeast Asia’s largest car e-commerce platform with operations across Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore. The company provides end-to-end solutions to consumers and car dealers, from car inspection to ownership transfer to financing, promising a service that is trusted, convenient and efficient.

According to Public Bank’s managing director/chief executive officer Tan Sri Tay Ah Lek, this collaboration aims to offer a comprehensive financial services solution namely PB Current Account, PB Enterprise, Cash Management and Credit Card Merchant Service with preferential terms to Carsome and its member Car Dealers.

He said this collaboration is also in line with Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) initiatives to accelerate the digitalisation of financial services, which include supporting the overall development of a dynamic fintech ecosystem in Malaysia.

This, he said, will enable Public Bank to interface with Carsome’s online platform to provide a more efficient and seamless vehicle financing delivery system, thus further reducing processing time as well as minimising physical documentation for the financing of successful bidding of vehicles.

“Through this collaboration, Public Bank is confident to further improve our market share in the vehicle financing segment”.

“Being a leading financier in the automobile industry, Public Bank’s strong infrastructure will bring mutual benefits to this new relationship with Carsome. And Carsome will be able to leverage on our wide network of branches and HP Centres which are strongly supported by the trust in our PB Brand to extend market acceptance of its platform,” Tay added.

Meanwhile, Carsome’s co-founder and group chief executive officer Eric Cheng said the platform was thrilled to be working with Public Bank to offer financing solutions to its customers and dealer-partners.

“Our vision has always been to create an end-to-end integrated online used vehicle ecosystem; our partnership with Public Bank brings us one step closer to that, as we are able to give more financing options to our customers and dealer-partners when they transact with us.”

At the time of writing on Friday (March 18), Public Bank shares were trading down two sen or 0.43% to RM4.61, giving the bank a market capitalisation of RM89.29 billion.