KUALA LUMPUR, 14 September 2026 – Malaysians keep 50.7% of the banking system's deposits in fixed deposits, by Bank Negara Malaysia's count as at December 2025. Anyone who has sat through a family money conversation knows these three numbers by heart; 12-month fixed deposit (rates ranging from 2.50% to 3.70%), EPF’s returns (2025: 6.15%), and the gap to what families aspire to earn. Crewstone International and Wealth Vantage Advisory have spent the past 2 years closing that gap. The collaboration began in November 2024 and places private credit allocations inside the financial plans of families and high-net-worth investors.
“Any private credit investor judges a manager by three metrics; the yield it pays, the capital it loses, and whether money arrives on the date named,” said Keah Eewen, Director, Investor & Client Coverage of Crewstone International. Distributions have run at an average of 11.0% per annum as at 30 June 2026, net of all fees, and investors have received every quarterly distribution on schedule.
Inside a financial plan, private credit does the work Malaysian portfolios have long assigned to deposits and bond funds. It produces income on scheduled dates, over a defined term, at yields that reflect the lending risk taken. "Set private credit beside the other income instruments and the difference shows," said Wong Keng Fai, Chief Executive Officer of Crewstone International. "A fixed deposit is safe, but its return stops at whatever the bank is willing to pay. A bond fund offers more, though it moves with the market daily and carries no maturity date of its own. Private credit is built differently, around a defined repayment schedule rather than a floating rate. That structure is what earns it a place in a financial plan, and it is also why the risks of illiquidity and reliance on the borrower's own repayment sit differently than they do in a fixed deposit or a bond fund."
Crewstone International is a licensed private equity manager with the Securities Commission Malaysia; Wealth Vantage is an approved financial adviser under Bank Negara Malaysia and a licensed financial planning firm under the Securities Commission Malaysia.
"Working with Wealth Vantage these past 2 years has been an easy decision to keep making," Wong added. "Their planners know their clients, we know our borrowers, and we both deliver on every date we promise."
For most of the past decade, the asset class built around exactly that behaviour sat out of reach. Private credit, lending that pays contractual income over a defined tenor, was an institutional market. The firms that moved it were the biggest names in American investing. Blackstone, KKR and their peers spent the past decade carrying private credit out of pension mandates and into the portfolios of wealthy families. Blackstone's private wealth business now manages more than US$300 billion. KKR's private wealth vehicles doubled in a year to US$32 billion. Moody's, in its private credit outlook published this January, sees the asset class "exceeding $2 trillion in 2026 and approaching $4 trillion by 2030". 9 in 10 American financial advisers now allocate client portfolios to alternatives, per the latest CAIS-Mercer survey.
The wave has since reached Asia Pacific, where AIMA projects the private credit pool to grow by more than half by 2027, from US$59 billion to US$92 billion and the share held through wealth channels rather than institutions to reach 28%, up from 23% at the start of the decade. More than 1 dollar in every 4 of the region's private credit will be family and adviser money by 2027. Crewstone International has spent the same two years carrying private credit into Malaysia, working with Wealth Vantage Advisory and other financial advisory firms to bring the asset class into the financial plans of Malaysian families and high-net-worth investors..
The wider architecture has moved in the same direction. Committed funds under the Securities Commission's venture capital and private equity regime reached RM30.05 billion at the end of 2025, up 21.66% in a year and compounding at 21% annually since 2020. The regulator's Capital Market Masterplan 2026-2030 charts a capital market of up to RM6.3 trillion by the decade's end.
"Our role as financial planners is not to start with an investment product, but with the client's goals, time horizon, liquidity needs and risk profile," said Stephen Yong, Executive Director of Wealth Vantage Advisory. "Financial planners have an important role in helping clients understand both the opportunities and risks of private credit, and where it may appropriately fit within their overall financial plan."
Important notice
This announcement does not constitute an offer or invitation to subscribe for or purchase any investment product. Private market investments in Malaysia are available only to sophisticated investors within the meaning of the Capital Markets and Services Act 2007. Past distributions are not a guarantee of future performance. Private market investments involve risks, including illiquidity and the possible loss of capital.