GL on a roll in Myanmar

The digital finance firm, through its holding company in Singapore, GL Holdings, will form a 57:53 joint venture with U Aung Moe Kyaw and his AMK Consortium to support Century Finance Company, a Myanmar finance company owned by U Aung Moe Kyaw.
It will provide a broad range of financial services to the booming Myanmar markets, especially in the countryside.
The JV is expected to be established by the end of this year or early next year.
“We are very pleased to enter into this collaboration with U Aung Moe Kyaw and his partners,” Mitsuji Konoshita, chairman and chief executive officer, said at the signing of the agreement with U Aung Moe Kyaw in Bangkok.
According to Group Lease’s filing to the Stock Exchange of Thailand, AMK Consortium controls about 65 per cent of whisky distribution.
It also manages more than 22,000 grocery shops in Myanmar, including 1,400 wholesale shops, some of which are already operating pawnshop businesses.
This distribution network is the biggest in Myanmar in outlets, which will perfectly match with Group Lease’s digital finance platform.
As Group Lease has already proven in Cambodia with True Money, its digital finance business model is the only model that can utilise 100-per-cent benefits from AMK Consortium’s extensive agents network.
The business model in Myanmar will be a mixture of the “channelling services” model in Indonesia with its partner Bank JT and the agent model in Cambodia with True Money.
“These business models are quite new, unique and innovative.
“Combining them together, we shall be able to effectively provide a wide range of financial services for the benefit of the Myanmar people, especially those in the rural grassroots areas,” Konoshita said.
Century Finance, one of Myanmar’s 15 non-bank finance companies licensed by the Myanmar central bank, provides car leasing services. With Group Lease’s expertise and support, its range of financial services will now broaden to cover the leasing of motorcycles, agricultural machinery and solar panels and other consumer finance credit under “channelling services” managed and provided by the new JV.
Group Lease’s partnership with AMK Consortium comes after its recent takeover of BG Myanmar Microfinance.
The new JV completes the full range of financial services and products that will be offered to the Myanmar markets – from small microfinance loans through BG Myanmar Microfinance to big-ticket items like rice harvesters through Century Finance.