UOB, Doxa sign MOU to digitalise Kimly Construction’s finance processes

First appeared on: Business Times Government & Economy

UOB and Doxa signed a memorandum-of-understanding (MOU) with Kimly Construction for the execution of the trio’s first green trade finance transaction together and as part of a industry-wide move to enable companies to move their procurement and trade financing processes online, the bank announced in a press statement on Thursday (Aug 18).

Doxa, which develops the product Doxa Connex, is an online procure-to-pay platform that connects buyers, suppliers and financers in managing their workflow and payment process.

The pilot with Kimly Construction and Doxa is the first of such green trade and sustainable transactions leveraging Doxa Connex, and will lead to easier procurement and trade financing processes to build efficiency and incorporate sustainability in the ecosystem for the long-term, UOB noted.

The collaboration will accelerate the digitalisation of an industry that is generally very manual and paper based, said head of group transaction banking at UOB, So Lay Hua.

“With Doxa Connex, Kimly Construction and its suppliers can manage their business processes with greater efficiency,” So said. “Leveraging the existing digital data available on Doxa Connex, UOB will be able to provide Kimly Construction with green and sustainable trade financing without additional paper documents.”

The latest move means that the procurement and trade financing processes for Kimly Construction’s latest green project – the construction of the Singapore Institute of Technology campus at Punggol North (Plot 2) – will be moved entirely online.

Kimly Construction will be able to validate its suppliers’ or subcontractors’ invoices on Doxa Connex, while its trade financing requests will be automatically forwarded to UOB. This eliminates the need for the company to send the hard copies of the relevant documents to UOB branches for submission.

UOB will also be working with Doxa in the coming months to encourage more companies to digitalise their procurement, payment and financing processes.

Doxa’s trade financing module will help reduce manpower cost and boost productivity and achieve process efficiency in the long term, said director of Kimly Construction, Louis Khoo.

Edmund Ng, chief executive officer and co-founder of Doxa, noted that with the financial services embedded in Doxa Connex, it works as the information highway backbone to provide financial institutions with a single source of data truth and greater transparency.

“Small and medium-sized enterprises gain better access to capital and a lower cost of funds. Together with UOB and Kimly Construction, we are taking the first step to achieve green trade finance, and towards the SGTraDex initiative. This will unify the financial ecosystem,” Ng added.

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The original press release can be found here.