The Mission
Direct Lending is a fast-growing, award-winning lending fintech on a mission to empower people's lives with simple and responsible financing. Having built a sustainable, profitable foundation, we are now entering a scaling-up phase. Our roadmap is clear: scale our needs-based financing, grow our revenue 5X and become IPO-ready by 2030.
We are looking for a SME Sales & Merchant Acquisition Manager to be driving force in growing our SME business financing portfolio. With more than 3,000 onboarded merchants across auto workshops, takaful agencies, and medical providers, your mission is clear — to promote and penetrate this base with our tailored SME financing solutions. You will own the end-to-end B2B sales cycle, from strategic prospecting to converting these businesses into financing customers.
Why Join Direct Lending?
- Ownership of Real Outcomes: You will own a merchant portfolio with a clear KPI – business financing disbursement and transaction volume. Your work directly impacts the company's loan book and growth story.
- Variety and Growth: You will rotate through merchant activation and retention functions over a period of time, building a comprehensive skill set and seeing the full merchant lifecycle.
- Mission-Driven Work: You will be working with workshops, medical providers, and takaful agencies — businesses that serve everyday Malaysians. Your work helps real people access financing when they need it most.
- Speed as a Competitive Advantage: We are a lean, profitable fintech where decisions are made in hours, not months. You will have the support and autonomy to get things done.
Your Core Responsibilities
- Promoting Direct Lending’s SME financing solutions by building and maintaining strong, active relationships with merchant partners.
- Driving SME business growth through the strategic acquisition of automotive workshops, takaful agencies, and medical partners.
- Expanding the SME financing portfolio by leading high-impact negotiations and effectively closing deals.
- Structuring tailored SME financing solutions based on thorough assessments of each merchant’s specific financing and business requirements.
- Collaborating with internal departments to ensure seamless loan processing and an excellent client experience for our SME partners.
- Analyzing market trends and competitor activities to continuously enhance our SME financing product offerings.
Who You Are
- 4–6 years of experience in SME financing, business lending, B2B sales, account management, or merchant relations—ideally within Fintech, BNPL, traditional banking, or financial services.
- Proven track record in B2B sales development, with strong skills in leading negotiations and successfully closing deals.
- Basic financial literacy or experience conducting needs-assessments and analyzing SME/merchant financing requirements.
- Demonstrated "hunter" mentality—proactive, self-motivated, and highly goal-oriented.
- Strong relationship builder and natural communicator who can build trust quickly with small business owners across diverse industries (e.g., automotive workshops, medical practices, agencies).
- Cross-functional collaboration skills to work effectively with internal departments (e.g., credit risk, operations) to ensure smooth loan processing.
- Professional fluency in English and Bahasa Malaysia; the ability to speak Mandarin is a strong advantage to support your assigned merchant base.
- Mobility: Possession of own transport and willingness to travel frequently for merchant site visits as required.
Working at Direct Lending
We value direct communication, evidence-based decision-making, and people who take ownership without being told. Our values are:
- Right thing, always — act with integrity
- Ownership — own outcomes, not tasks
- One team — collaborate, never silo
- Today's best is tomorrow's benchmark — improve continuously
- Serve customers first — every decision starts with the customer