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 Sales & Merchant Acquisition Senior Executive/ 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
- 2–4 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