Central Pattana plc., operator of centralwOrld, CentralPlaza and CentralFestival shopping centers, Central Phuket and Thailand's first luxury outlet Central Village, continues to help its business partners with innovative initiatives, including the launch of Central Pattana Serve, an all-in-one mobile application for the company's business partners and the first of its kind for Thai shopping center businesses.
In addition, the company has joined forces with Investree (Thailand), a crowdfunding platform startup approved by Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), to conduct business matching in various forms for its partners at all levels to create endless opportunities and help Thai SMEs to access capital by allowing the SMEs registered as juristic persons to use invoices and contracts with Central Pattana in lieu of asset-backed collateral.
Mr. Isareit Chirathivat, Senior Vice President of Leasing at Central Pattana plc., said, "Central Pattana has always been committed to taking the best care of its entrepreneur partners, which currently number over 15,000. We have been turning tenants' pain points into gain points with various innovations with an aim to grow together in a sustainable way."
"Recently, we have launched Central Pattana Serve, a complete solution application for our business partners and the first of its kind for Thai shopping center businesses. We are the first and only shopping center business in Thailand to provide such application and solution via an app, which will make it easy, convenient and quick for our partners to manage their shops, contact the shopping center, conduct transactions, receive information and enjoy various benefits and privileges for their businesses," he said.
"We are also preparing to launch The 1 Biz as an effective CRM (customer relationship management) tool to help boost sales of our partners and access more customers, supported by our business plans throughout the whole year," said Mr. Isareit.
The company has also provided '360-degree assistance' to support over 4,500 SMEs who have conducted a business with Central shopping centers, such as restaurants and shops in the Food Park, Fashion Plus and E-Center zones, and offered rent reduction in according to the circumstances of each business.
Central Pattana is working with new financial partners, including startups, to help the SMEs and partners access short-term capital, in addition to the earlier initiative to facilitate multi-bank loans from Kasikornbank, Krung Thai Bank, Bank of Ayudhya, Bangkok Bank, Siam Commercial Bank, TMBThanachart, and Government Savings Bank. Tenants of Central shopping centers can secure soft loans and O/D loans to support their liquidity in operations, while Central Pattana provides a credit score based on a grading system that can help develop a tailor-made credit plan for each tenant.
At the same time, Central Pattana has developed a new omnichannel platform and other services to help shops and restaurants improve sales and cater to customer behaviors. These include online Chat & Shop service, food takeaway, food delivery via platforms such as GrabFood, drive thru and pick-up services, and live streaming for each of its shopping centers.
"The company believes in dynamism and is always ready to adapt quickly and create innovations to take care of our business partners and help them grow together under the 'community at heat' approach, which we have adhered to for the past 40 years," said Mr. Isareit.
Ms. Natsuda Bhukkanasut, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Investree, said, "Investree was founded to help small businesses access capital in a new way that is both convenient and quick through direct crowdfunding with a reasonable rate and transparent process. Most importantly, the businesses will not need to use assets as collateral as they can use business invoices or contracts with Central Pattana instead. At the same time, the investors are able to invest in new products and diversify their investment portfolios."
"A common issue for Thai SMEs is the delay of payments by their customers, which causes short-term liquidity problems for them. These SMEs are often unable to access loans from commercial banks because they do not have assets to be used as collateral, causing many to turn to illegal loan sharks. Loans granted to Thai SMEs account for less than one percent of the GDP, compared to 85 percent for loans granted to other businesses, which is considered an enormous credit gap for the Thai financial system. This situation also happens in other countries. Therefore, we hope that debentures via our investment-based crowdfunding will be another alternative for the Thai SMEs who are the grassroots of the Thai economy. Investors and SMEs who are interested in our service should check the website https://investr.ee/CPN," said Ms. Natsuda.
Central Pattana has pledged to stand with and join hands with over 15,000 partners and entrepreneurs across the country to fight the crisis and move forward together.