SEC Assistant Secretary-General Praoporn Senanarong said :“SEC is well aware of the importance of revising the regulations and drafted notification on the crowdfunding* and facilitating SMEs and startups to access sources of capital efficiently at reasonable costs.”

“Presently, SEC has the existing equity crowdfunding rules since 2015 for SMEs and startups with clear business plans to gain easier access into funding sources. Meanwhile, SEC wishes to increase alternative financing resources for SMEs and startups, apart from equities. Thus, it has supported the issuance of the regulation for debenture crowdfunding,” SEC Assistant Secretary-General added.

SEC revised its regulations and drafted notification on crowdfunding by including debentures as one of the securities offered. The supervision scheme follows a similar regulatory framework to the one governing equity crowdfunding in several dimensions including: (1) issuers are allowed to offer either secured or unsecured debentures via a crowdfunding system; (2) crowdfunding must be conducted through a funding portal approved by SEC and the funding portal must have a system for assessing creditworthiness and risks of debenture issuers including disclosure of assessment factors; (3) the investment limit is capped at no more than 100,000 baht for each retail investor, equity and debentures combined, up from no more than 50,000 baht; (4) the investment limit is set at no more than 1 million baht for each retail investor, equity and debenture combined, in 12 consecutive months, up from no more than 500,000 baht in 12 consecutive months; (5) fundraising is more flexible by cancelling separation of offering limit to retail investors and non-retail investors.

In addition, SEC will amend the details in the crowdfunding notification to be consistent with other notifications. This includes revision to the definitions of private equity and venture capital businesses to conform the definitions under the digital token offering regulations, and revision to the regulations governing shareholders’ offering of a limited company’s equity in case of trading crowdfunding equity in the secondary market to be in line with the primary market offering rules.

SEC disseminates the public hearing document on this issue at www.sec.or.th/hearing

Stakeholders and interested parties are welcome to submit comments on the website until 28 January 2019.

________________________

Remark: Public Hearing Document - https://capital.sec.or.th/webapp/phs/viewall/viewall.php

*Crowdfunding is a fund raising method from crowd through funding portals typically on the internet. It is another alternative for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and startups to gain access into funding sources and, in exchange, enterprises issue equities or debentures to investors.

https://www.sec.or.th/TH/Pages/News_Detail.aspx?SECID=7282&NewsNo=2&NewsYear=2562&Lang=TH