Indonesia’s credit score bureaus at present have about 92 million credit score information, however the founders of SkorLife say many individuals have hassle accessing their very own information. That’s why they constructed the app, which not solely lets individuals see their credit score histories without cost but additionally offers personalised recommendation on easy methods to enhance information. The Jakarta-based startup introduced right now it has raised $2.2 million in pre-seed funding.
AC Ventures participated within the spherical, which additionally included Saison Capital and angel traders like all of the founders of OneCard; Advance.ai’s Jefferson Chan; KoinWorks’ Will Arifin; Lummo’s Krishnan Menon; Evermos’ Arip Tirta; Qoala’s Harshet Lunani; Init-6’s Willy Arifin and Achmad Zaky; and executives from Northstar Group, Stripe, Google, Boston Consulting Group, Gojek and CreditKarma.
SkorLife says the personal, alpha model of its app has been downloaded greater than 3,000 occasions and is rising organically by 50 to 60 new customers a day. That surpasses its inside goal by 7x and the app can be out there for public obtain quickly. The corporate’s new funding can be used on product improvement, new hires and advertising and marketing. SkorLife at present has 10 workers, with plans to extend headcount to 40.
CEO Ongki Kurniawan was beforehand nation head of Stripe Indonesia and likewise held management positions at Seize, telcoXL Axiata and Line, whereas COO Karan Khetan is a serial entrepreneur whose previous startups embody 5x and BookMyShow Southeast Asia. The 2 met in 2018 whereas establishing a partnership between Seize and BookMyShow to supply ticketing companies by way of Seize’s tremendous app.
SkorLife founders Ongki Kurniawan and Karan Khetan. Picture Credit: SkorLife
Kurniawan tells TechCrunch the 2 spent numerous time exploring completely different concepts. The primary was to digitize the “pawn dealer”/secured mortgage business, however the unit economics didn’t work.
“Nonetheless, we discovered that many Indonesians resort to pawning their objects as a result of they imagine they are going to get rejected in the event that they method banks,” he stated, including that seven out of 10 mortgage candidates do certainly get rejected. “This was additional validated after talking with quite a few business consultants. We discovered that Indonesia’s client borrowing pool is small.”
Whereas doing their analysis, Kurniawan and Khetan additionally noticed that many Indonesians don’t have entry to their credit score scores and different information that might assist them see how banks decide their creditworthiness, which in flip means they lose the chance to entry reasonably priced loans.
SkorLife’s founders say that creditworthiness is underused in Indonesia, the place most monetary establishments rating an individual’s means to get traces of credit score based mostly on their “earnings worthiness.”
“The factor to recollect just isn’t everybody who has excessive earnings pays their debt and never everybody who has a low earnings is not going to pay their debt,” Kurniawan stated.
Kurniawan stated that most individuals in Indonesia are unaware they will entry their very own credit score historical past and credit score scores and imagine that solely monetary establishments and banks have entry to that data.
In the event that they do work out easy methods to entry it, they’ve two choices. The primary is the free route, the place they request information from OJK (Indonesian Monetary Companies Authority). However the issue with that is that they both should go to an OJK workplace or wait days for a web-based appointment. The second, paid route entails clients going to a few licensed credit score bureaus in Indonesia to get their credit score reviews. However these reviews value cash, and Kurniawan says they’re many pages lengthy “and never designed to be digested by customers as a result of it’s supposed for use by analysts in monetary establishments.”
SkorLife solves these issues by giving individuals free entry to credit score scores they might in any other case have to leap by way of hurdles to get. Its principal product is a credit score builder utility that allows individuals to immediately see and monitor their credit score scores, credit score reviews and different information from credit score bureaus, without cost. It additionally helps customers dispute inaccurate data on their credit score reviews. If somebody doesn’t have a credit score historical past but, the app will assist them begin constructing scores.
By the app, clients can see their BI Checking Rating, or Indonesia’s nationally acknowledged credit score data that’s utilized by virtually all monetary establishments to make credit score selections, in addition to their credit score rating, which is generated by credit score bureaus to find out the potential of somebody defaulting on a mortgage within the subsequent 12 months.
In addition they see what components go into their credit score rating, together with their cost historical past, credit score utilization, the stability versus their secured versus unsecured credit score accounts, the age of every of their credit score accounts, ID monitoring to see if a monetary establishment is doing a tough examine on their information, the whole variety of credit score accounts they’ve, each energetic and inactive, and excellent balances.
That information is then used to create AI-based, personalised insights for every buyer that they will use to enhance their credit score scores. The app additionally has academic content material and a options that makes it straightforward for purchasers to dispute inaccurate information.
Some examples of insights embody cost historical past and permitting clients to examine invoice dates and set reminders, age of credit score (or encouraging clients to not shut a card that has been open for a very long time) and utilization. SkorLife recommends that clients keep a bank card restrict utilization beneath 30% to enhance their rating.
In an announcement, AC Ventures founder and managing accomplice Adrian Li stated, “The chance in Indonesia is huge. Even because the area is comparatively untapped, the buyer credit score market dimension is already north of US$185 billion. That stated, it has at all times been a problem right here as a result of lenders have by no means been in a position to attract holistic conclusions about debtors based mostly on restricted and fragmented data. However with these information troves simply ready to be unlocked and used meaningfully in a consumer-facing app, we’re enthusiastic about SkorLife’s imaginative and prescient and mission of placing individuals again in command of their monetary futures.
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