Crewstone International Sdn Bhd (“Crewstone”), a licensed and regulated private equity and private credit manager, has entered into a strategic co-investment with Mirai Bridge Capital Sdn Bhd (“MBC”), also a licensed Private Equity Management Corporation, through Thirty Three Digitec Solutions Sdn Bhd (“Digitec”), a non-bank financing platform that sits within a wider financing ecosystem with more than RM 500 million in financing transactions over the past 3-5 years.
Pictured at the signing ceremony are Keng Fai Wong, Chief Executive Officer of Crewstone International; Tommy Ng, Co-Founder of Mirai Bridge Capital and Ng Kae Shen, Director of Thirty Three Digitec Solutions, marking the formalisation of a strategic co-investment partnership between the three parties.
Led by Crewstone through an initial RM5.0 million commitment, the partnership builds on Crewstone’s wider financial services private credit strategy, including more than RM30 million deployed into financial services companies across prior private credit transactions. Together with MBC’s licensed investment-management platform, Digitec’s operating infrastructure, and a network of more than 30 KPKT-licensed money-lending partners, the partnership is designed to scale a more structured non-bank financing ecosystem supported by capital access, governance discipline, origination data and repayment monitoring.
The structure also strengthens credit alignment through personal guarantees from Digitec’s key operating team members, supported by MBC’s corporate guarantee role as a licensed PEMC. Digitec principals bring over 30 years of combined industry experience across consumer credit and micro-lending, with hands-on expertise in credit operations, underwriting and borrower management, while MBC adds regulated investment-management credibility to the guarantee framework.
Digitec currently supports approximately 83,000 borrowers, processes approximately 8,000 applications per month, and reaches gig economy workers, micro-entrepreneurs and thin-file borrowers, with scope to expand that footprint by approximately 40% over the next 12-18 months following this partnership. The business has recorded year-on-year growth in digital acquisition of 40%, supported by a streamlined onboarding journey comprising 6 steps and a current turnaround time of approximately 30 minutes from application to credit decision. Approximately 55% of approved applications are successfully disbursed within 3 hours, underscoring the platform’s ability to reduce friction at the front end while improving customer responsiveness, particularly for borrowers seeking timely access to financing for urgent personal and small business needs.
This digitalisation extends beyond onboarding into underwriting and collections, where automation is increasingly shaping both operating efficiency and portfolio management. Digitec’s credit decisioning engine currently processes approximately 60% of applications end-to-end on an automated basis, while automated income verification and document extraction have achieved an accuracy rate of around 80%. Manual credit assessment, which previously took approximately 2-3 days, has now been reduced to around 30 minutes through workflow enhancements across OCR, AI-enabled processing and operating controls that have strengthened the platform’s underwriting and servicing capabilities.
On the collections side, Digitec uses personalised dunning strategies, risk-based prioritisation, unified account views for agents and real-time reporting for supervisors. Early-stage delinquency alerts are triggered by missed payment behaviour, deteriorating repayment patterns, repeated broken promises to pay and higher-risk balance migration, allowing intervention to begin earlier and with greater precision. These enhancements have contributed to an approximately 700-basis-point year-on-year reduction in default rates, reflecting stronger underwriting and repayment monitoring.
That strategic alignment finds practical expression in Digitec, serving a segment of the Malaysian market that remains insufficiently reached by conventional credit channels. As of January 2026, Malaysia’s labour force stood at 17.28 million. Within that, 3.13 million were own-account workers, a segment more likely to have less conventional income documentation. On the enterprise side, MSMEs employed 8.10 million people and contributed 39.5% of GDP, pointing to a large borrower base whose financing needs are not always well served by traditional underwriting models, particularly where income trails are less formal, credit histories are limited, or turnaround times matter.
The partnership comes as global private credit continues to scale, with the market now estimated at approximately USD 1.8 trillion and private credit strategies attracting more than USD 220.0 billion in 2025. Institutional direct-lending funds also raised at least USD 16.0 billion in Q2 2026 alone, reflecting continued demand for non-bank financing channels. Against this backdrop, Digitec provides Crewstone and MBC with access to a scalable Malaysian private credit platform supported by licensed origination, borrower-level data, underwriting automation and repayment monitoring.
“This partnership reflects Crewstone’s belief that in a market that is already competitive and becoming more so, the strongest outcomes will come from firms that know when to join forces and scale with intent,” said Keng Fai Wong, Chief Executive Officer of Crewstone International. “By combining Crewstone’s capital and growth capabilities with MBC’s platform familiarity and operating proximity, we are building from a stronger base. That matters not only for Digitec, but for how both firms position themselves for the next phase of opportunity across Asia.”
“We are pleased to be working with Crewstone on Digitec and believe this partnership brings meaningful strategic value to the platform,” said Tommy Ng, Co-Founder of Mirai Bridge Capital. “Crewstone’s strength in capital formation, structuring and growth strategy makes them a strong partner for this next phase. More broadly, we see this as the beginning of a wider relationship, with potential to pursue additional opportunities together over time.”
“Crewstone’s participation reflects strong conviction in the platform we have built and in the opportunity ahead. This initial commitment strengthens our ability to scale the loan book, deepen our underwriting capability, and expand access to structured financing across segments that continue to be underserved,” said Ng Kae Shen, Director of Thirty Three Digitec Solutions.
