Singaporean financial comparison site GoBear is extending its regional influence and business remit with the acquisition of consumer lending platform Asiakredit, which has processed over one million loan applications in the Phillippines.
GoBear says it will use the AsiaKredit platform to provide its 100 banking and insurance partners with a lending-as-a-service facility for underserved consumers in South East Asia and Hong Kong.
With Covid-19 decimating the workforce in South East Asia, providing underbanked consumers with access to credit is expected to grow in importance.
Adrian Chng, CEO of GoBear, says: “With AsiaKredit as part of the GoBear family, we will be in a stronger position to fulfill our mission of improving the financial health of the underserved across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. GoBear and AsiaKredit, together with our banking partners, will be able to offer millions of consumers access to an alternate source of credit and ethical lending."
As well as opening up a new corridor to the Phillippines, Chng believes the insights gained from transactional data captured by AsiaKredit will enable it to get a better handle on pricing risks across its own platform.
Last year, GoBear raised US$80M from the Netherlands-based asset management company Aegon and Dutch VC firm Walvis Participaties.
Financial terms of the transaction were undisclosed.