Mission
We provide capital to help Emerging Customers and Emerging Enterprises grow in the grassroots Roots Economy.
Screening
We invest in people to improve their livelihood.
Focus
To understand our customer’s real information, our staff conduct in-person visits to all customer’s homes.
Rural
We focus on rural communities which are globally home to 2.5 billion who lack access to financing.
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NEWS REPORTS & DATA

ABOUT GL

There are about 2.5 billion people in the world who lack access to finance. They work in agriculture, fishing, or operate small shops in rural areas in emerging countries. They need investments to improve their lives. For example to expand their shops, to own transportation allowing them to travel to more cities to sell their agricultural products, and to obtain lights and electricity so their children can study even without sunlight. We would like to provide them small, but very big and meaningful loans, to them. We provide funds needed to grow the “Emerging Consumers” and “Emerging Enterprises” in the “Grass Roots Economy”. This is our original and still current mission for our digital finance business. The lady in the picture is a Cambodian. Her family has lived together in the same village for more than 100 years. She was in desperate need of solar panels so that her grandchildren can study, however there was no bank or finance company in the village and she was refused financing in the nearest city because she did not have any income verification and thus was considered to be “not credible”. At last, she was about to borrow money from local loan sharks but instead Grouplease provided financing to her. The finance is how to give credits to strangers.We Group lease run credit checks in a unique wAt Grouplease, we run credit checks in a unique way and have established own risk management system that allows us to provide credit to the 2.5 billion people who lack access to finance to improve their lives. This is our mission.
We have 3 values, First, Fast & Forward. We move first, fast, and forward.
In 2011 we expanded to Cambodia when there was no law allowing leasing and in 2012 became the “First” company to receive a leasing business license after financial leasing law was established. Since then, we have expanded faster than anyone else. We are “Fast” and open new POS every 3 days. We are also “Forward” thinking and are expanding this new finance model developed in Cambodia to all over the world.

Our strategy is very different from other finance companies in three aspects.

Global

First, we are global. We have full operations in 6 countries while others operate only in their home country.

Rural

Second, we focus on rural areas where 2.5 billion people who lack access to finance live. Others focus on cities where doing business is convenient and everything is easily accessible.

Digital

Third, “Digital”. We have developed our own IT system for people at “Emerging Grass Roots” economy and keep updating it every day.

We call our business “Digital Finance” which are composed of IT network, Finance method and Commerce (POS) network.

At the end of 2015, we were in only 3 countries: Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. In 2016, we have full-scale operations in 6 countries and with every country profitable. In Indonesia, we achieved profitability in very first quarter after receiving our business license. No other finance company can perform faster than that.

OUR BUSINESS

“Brief Milestones”

  • 1986 Founded, with the registered capital of roughly USD $40,000
  • 2004 Listed in SET on 13 October
  • 2007 Acquired By APF Fund
  • 2012 Expanded from Thailand to Cambodia and acquired the first leasing license in Cambodian history
  • 2016 Selected for Morgan Stanley Capital International Global Stock Index (MSCI)

* Recorded more than USD $30 million in Net Income *

Screening

The key focus for our finance business is controlling bad debts. It is very important to select customers who will pay on time to control the bad debts.

The important point of screening is to “Know Your Customer (KYC)”. We focus on understanding our customer’s real information. At screening, our staff visit all customers house by motorcycle. Our staff interview each customer at his or her house, confirm its location and the customer’s background, and interview the neighbors to reconfirm the information.

Typical finance companies focus on documents, having their staff to collect and check papers. However, our target “Emerging Grass Roots” customers do not have such documents, so we cannot screen via documents. Additionally, it is very common in our emerging markets that documents are old and inaccurate and therefore do not provide us with true information. We control our bad debts ratio, very low compared to peers, by our own screening system.

Our staff key in and send useful and true information through our original application to headquarter in real-time. Our country headquarters can then make a decision in a couple of hours based on the in-person collected information. Our method provide us with a fast and efficient screening.

POS & Collection

This is our basic business unit: one table, a few chairs, one computer, one smart phone and one or two staff.

The investment amount per one unit of POS is about USD $400. The low cost explains why we can expand so quickly in rural areas. We do not have Managers at our POS but instead connect each one directly to our local headquarters. Alternatively, other finance companies set up attractive but expensive branches with offices, air-conditioning, electricity and many other facilities. This system has huge cost and speed differences compared to ours. Our “flat structure without middle cost” allows us to expand as fast as opening 100 POS in half a year while other finance companies “hierarchy structure with big middle management costs” prevents them from doing so.

To accelerate our expansion, we are forming alliances with companies in different fields who already have POS networks. For example, we can provide finance via their POS and through their agents. We can achieve this because we have our original IT system.

Next Stage

We will connect with all current dealers and partners networks. Our partners, TrueMoney, which has about 5,000 agents in Cambodia, and AMK Consortium, which has about 22,000 retail shops in Myanmar, will be connected through our original IT system

These dealers become our dealers who introduce “Emerging Consumers” to us and become our clients as “Emerging Enterprises” at the same time.

At the end of 2015, we had about 1,000 dealers.

At the end of 2016, we had more than 50,000 dealers.

At the end of 2015, we had about 200 thousand contacting customers.

At the end of 2016, we had about 20 million potential contacting customers.

High-speed expansion and small investments, these are the strong points of our Digital Finance.

Next target is

10 million shops and 100 million customers in 2018.

We are IT company and also a finance company. We have expandability like an IT company, monetizing ability like finance company and real points of contact to reach customers in rural areas. We can sell any products and serve any kinds of business. This is our Digital Finance business.

Continue to lead IT Innovation

Continue to lead Finance Innovation

Continue to lead Commerce Innovation

Digital Platform for Billions of People.

Digital Platform for Millions of Products.

OUR PRODUCT

Product Partners

– Exclusive motorcycle financier in Cambodia and Myanmar.
– Leading financier in Laos
– Market leader financier for Kubota in Cambodia, Laos, and Indonesia.

Strategic Investors and Partners

Creation
(top 10 shareholder of GL, a leading American impact investment fund active in Asia, Latin American, and Europe, and also active in Microfinance sectors)
CCF (Commercial Credit and Finance)
(leading financial institution in Sri Lanka which GL owns 29.99%. Listed in Colombo Stock Exchange.)
TrueMoney
(signed MOU in 2016 to incorporate their 5,000 Cambodia agents into GL’s salesforce)
AMMK Group
(our partner in Myanmar who has more than 22,000 grocery and 1,400 wholesale shops)

COUNTRIES

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CONTACT US

 Group Lease Public Company Limited,
63 Soi 1 Thetsabannimitrtai Road,
Ladyao, Chatuchak, Bangkok 10900.
For general inquiry
 +66 (0)-2580-7555
 [email protected]
 
 
 
 
 
 
For Investor Relations
 +66 (0)-2580-7555 Ext. 8108
 [email protected]
Whistleblowing
Chairman of the Corporate Governance Committee
Group Lease Pcl.
P.O Box 149, Bang Sue,
Bangkok 10800
[email protected]