IPOS recently announced an IP Financing Scheme to endorse innovation among local companies. The motto of the scheme is to develop Singapore as a hub of IP transactions and management.

It is anticipated that the initiative taken will encourage more financial institutions to recognize IP as an asset. According to the reports, earlier the IP was not recognized as an asset value and was not granted loan using IP as a guarantee. With this new scheme, there will be huge support to Small and medium enterprises based in Singapore. The value of the IP will be determined in order to provide the financial institutions a basis for determining the amount of loans to be granted to the local companies by the IPOS’s valuation panel.

The currently participating financial institutions include,
• DBS bank
• OCBC (Oversea- Chinese Banking Corp)
• UOB (United Overseas Bank)

Added, these Institutions accept the applications for a validity of two years starting between second and third quarter of year 2014. Other special features include:

• The interest rate for repayment of the loan is not fixed.
• The interest rate will only be determined by the participating financial institutions after performing due diligence in the companies and the patents presented.
• The government underwrites the loan granted by the participating financial institutions.

By Akshatha Karthik