This South Asia-focused Fintech Company Aims to Provide 1-billion People Credit Access LenddoEFL boasts of a platform which is capable of taking any kind of data from digital footprint, psychometric or from the banks and credit bureau

Credit lending is a hot market. The gains are big and the need is immense. What but happens when credit lending goes wrong? The lender and the lendee both suffer, considerably.

Offering alternative credit scoring, identity verification and insights products to financial institutions in more than 20 emerging markets is one Asia Pacific leader LenddoEFL.

The company that was formed after the merger of Lenddo and BIZ Experiencesial Finance Lab 2017 has allowed more than 50 financial institutions to run over 6 million assessments for people with limited information, allowing them to disburse over $2 billion in credit.

LenddoEFL boasts of a platform which is capable of taking any kind of data from digital footprint, psychometric or from the banks and credit bureau. It fixes asymmetry of data, does machine learning and deep learning to provide credit access for the under banked.

For example if a first-time borrower comes without credit history looking for personal loans, he gives the company consent to help him build a credit history. Once the right permission is taken, the company sees what their contacts are and if they have taken a loan how they have behaved.

The company that counts Latin America, South East Asia and India among its high-performing markets now wants to provide 1 billion people credit access in the APAC according to Darshan Shah, the newly-appointed South Asia head of LenddoEFL.

"Our USP is that we can create a predictive score for anyone, using any set of data. Credit bureau works with data from the bank which is past history but we look at forward looking data," Shah told BIZ Experiences Asia Pacific.

India's premier institute IIM-Ahmedabad's passout believes 2 to 3 years ago, traditional banks were threatened by fintech but now the landscape has changed.

According to Shah, partnerships are now being talked about. "People have become data hungry. Whether crypto currency or fintech, the entire world is going in that direction," Shah said.

"Considering what is happening in India and South Asian ecosystem, there is a tremendous opportunity for players like us to work with BFSI and even regulators to maximise this opportunity," Shah said.

Shah comes with close to two decades of experience in the credit information industry. He has worked with large organisations like TransUnion CIBIL and Equifax and Experian in leadership roles

Shah says the company's entire ecosystem is working on how it empowers people to give consent of using their data for their benefit and inclusion.

The company dismisses any competition from credit bureaus.

"Credit bureaus are governed by CICRA Act and can use data only for limited permissible purposes. Only 50 per cent of to-the-door population entering financial institution have credit bureau records on past payment behaviour. But we can help 100 per cent; it's more like a partnership rather than competition," Shah clarified.