CredoLab and GoBear to Address Emerging Asian Markets

CredoLab –Singapore-based company focusing on alternative credit scoring– and the personal finance comparison website GoBear are teaming up to launch a new mobile app called Easy Apply. They will rely on CredoLab’s risk assessment technique to extend lending offers to a larger number of customers in South-east Asia.

Through this partnership, financial institutions will be provided easier access to poorly addressed targets. Easy Apply is being made available across four of the largest underbanked markets in South-east Asia (Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Philippines) where over 110 million people have poor access to credit offers, if any at all.

Easy Apply may be downloaded from GoBear’s Easy Choices interface. Borrowers will be able to choose between different products best suited their financial profile (credit cards at first, and later on personal loans). These profiles are assessed using CredoLab’s algorithms to extract and analyse behavioural data from customers’ smartphones. “Digital footprints” are then created to set customised risk profiles.

This AI-based alternative technology makes it possible to provide lending institutions with an overview of potentially creditworthy borrowers (65 to 75% of the population) who would have been excluded from typical credit risk assessment processes.

Comments – CredoLab reaches out for Asia with GoBear

The Singapore-based company reaches further out for Asian markets, and relies on partners for the sake of improving underbanked customers’ financial inclusion. CredoLab applies mobile data analytics to their decisioning processes and intends to grant more loans to people who may have little to no traditional credit history, while still monitoring all potential risks.

In partnership with GoBear, CredoLab observed a significant decrease in risk-related costs, faster credit decisioning processes, and a 45% increase in credit approval rates for the applications they score. Emerging South-east Asian markets are viewed as a land of opportunities by financial institutions: the average credit card penetration rate is 5% (except in Singapore and Malaysia) meaning that credit industry players could benefit from their commitment to improving financial inclusion. This market segment could end up being worth $90 billion by 2020 (source: Ernst & Young).