No abstract

Microfinance was introduced in Malaysia to provide financing services to the poor and Small Medium Enterprises (SME) to start up business. The borrower may use the facility to finance business activities such as to purchase assets and additional capital to expand their business. Microfinance helps SME that have limited access to get loan from financial institutions. Financial institutions specifically commercial bank refuse to provide microfinance facilities to SME due to the high default rate among the majority of borrowers who obtain loan without collateral. In addition, the percentage of non-performing loan (NPL) of microfinance in Malaysia has been increasing. Therefore, the objective of this research is to analyze the determinants of SMEs loan repayment performance in Malaysia. Results showed that there are four variables with significant relationship towards loan repayment namely educational level, business experience, amount of loan and loan tenure.

The establishment of ASEAN Exchange had removed the barriers and hassles from investors in six ASEAN member countries to invest freely and easily within the six countries' stock market, including Malaysia. This study aimed to analyse whether the establishment of ASEAN Exchange, can provide diversification benefit to Malaysian investors compared with their domestically diversified portfolio. The analysis is done based on 25 companies which selected from each participating ASEAN country by using Efficient Frontier Model. In addition, Sharpe Ratio had also been developed and analysed to provide an insight to Malaysia and ASEAN investors regarding the attractiveness of each ASEAN market. The results of this study conclusively show that an ASEAN level of diversification does bring benefits to Malaysian investors, as ASEAN portfolio outperforms all individual country's portfolio.