The Philippines Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved and granted two firms with crowdfunding licenses in the last week of February. In addition, both firms have been offered a permanent license in lieu of the 1-year provisional one.
The two firms, Eastern Securities and SeedIn Technology will now act as crowdfunding intermediaries in the country to make it easier for SMEs to raise funding.
Eastern Securities is a registered brokerage firm. It will be operating an equity-based crowdfunding platform under Round One. It is also making history as the first equity-based crowdfunding platform in the country.
The platform allows issuer-users to initiate and conduct crowdfunding campaigns while investor-users commit investment funds to the campaigns. As an issuer, one must provide concrete details of their offering, including crowdfunding target, the total equity they are offering, and the price of its shares.
On the other hand, SeedIn Technology is a debt-based crowdfunding platform for enabling lending by investors of all sorts. It uses its platform to match issuers to investors. They should also hold a registered bank account that the country’s financial institution licenses.
Crowdfunding has become a major source of funds for small and medium business enterprises around the world looking for money to finance their projects. Numerous crowdfunding platforms serve particular countries and regions, with some scaling their services to international individuals. As the need for fundraising increases, the increase for country-based regulated crowdfunding platforms is an excellent move that ensures SMEs raise the necessary funds for their projects.
