Financial Inclusion

CIMB Philippines Partners with Singapore’s CredoLab to Further Drive Financial Inclusion

CIMB Bank Philippines has partnered with Singapore-based fintech CredoLab to extend financial products to underbanked customers in the Philippines, starting with personal loans.

CIMB Bank Philippines uses CredoApp (CredoLab’s white-label mobile application) to instantly score applicants, including “thin-file” customers who lack sufficient or any traditional credit bureau data.

With CredoLab’s artificial intelligence-based credit scoring capabilities, Filipinos can apply for a credit loan of up to P1,000,000 even in the absence of fulfilling traditional banking requirements.

Within 10 minutes, Filipinos can enjoy in-principle approvals on their personal loans through the CIMB App and without having to step foot into or queue at a CIMB bank branch.

Commenting on their latest digital initiative, Vijay Manoharan, CEO of CIMB Bank, Philippines, said,

Vijay Manoharan

“As an all-digital bank, we are continuously looking for ways to improve the banking experience for our customers. With CredoLab, we are now focusing on making our application and underwriting process more efficient so that we can extend credit to a broader market without compromising on our cost of risk. In this way, we can further drive financial inclusion by enabling more Filipinos access to formal credit lending facilities efficiently.”

Credolab claims that its bank-grade algorithm analyses nearly 500,000 features from permissioned smartphone metadata to find the most predictive behavioural patterns before converting them into credit scores, in a matter of seconds. This enables banks like CIMB to understand the repayment behaviour and creditworthiness of their applicants with greater accuracy.

Within two weeks of the launch, the partnership has already scored over 1,000 customers all in less than 10 minutes with minimal traditional data requirements. CIMB Bank Philippines expects this number to grow at an exponential rate in the weeks to come as the bank steps up its marketing efforts to raise customer awareness and interest in CIMB’s personal loan product.

Peter Barcak, CEO and co-founder of CredoLab, said,

Peter Barcak

“CIMB Bank has been steadfast in adopting the latest technologies to present the best banking solutions to their customers. We are delighted that through our plug and play solution that complements and boosts their existing processes, we are powering CIMB Bank Philippines’ latest efforts in driving financial inclusion by providing credit to those who lack a traditional credit background.”

This partnership with CredoLab supports CIMB Bank Philippines’ plans to onboard more digital-savvy Filipinos by the end of 2019 by using the country’s growing smartphone penetration usage to their benefit. CIMB launched their digital-only bank earlier this year and within six months they’ve seen more than half a million customers sign up for its digital offerings.