Indonesia’s credit score bureaus at the moment 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 folks see their credit score histories free of charge, but additionally provides personalised recommendation on how you can 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 of KoinWorks; Lummo’s Krishnan Menon; Evermos’ Arip Tirta of Evermos; Qoala’s Harshet Lunani; Init-6’s Willy Arifin; Lummo’s Krishnan Menon; Evermos’ Arip Tirta; Qoala’s Harshet Lunani; Init-6’s 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 will probably be accessible for public obtain quickly. The corporate’s new funding will probably be used on product growth, new hires and advertising. SkorLife at the moment has 10 staff, 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 embrace 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
Kurniawan tells DailyTech the 2 spent plenty of time exploring completely different concepts. The primary was to digitize the “pawn dealer”/secured mortgage trade, however the unit economics didn’t work.
“Nonetheless, we discovered that many Indonesians resort to pawning their objects as a result of they consider they’ll get rejected in the event that they strategy banks,” he mentioned, including that seven out of 10 mortgage candidates do certainly get rejected. “This was additional validated after talking with plenty of trade specialists. We realized 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 will 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 skill to get strains of credit score primarily based on their “earnings worthiness.”
“The factor to recollect 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 mentioned.
Kurniawan mentioned that most individuals in Indonesia are unaware they will entry their very own credit score historical past and credit score scores, and consider that solely monetary establishments and banks have entry to that info.
In the event that they do work out how you can 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 an internet appointment. The second, paid route includes clients going to a few licensed credit score bureaus in Indonesia to get their credit score studies. However these studies value cash, and Kurniawan says they’re many pages lengthy “and never designed to be digested by customers as a result of it’s meant for use by analysts in monetary establishments.”
SkorLife solves these issues by giving folks free entry to credit score scores they might in any other case have to leap by way of hurdles to get. Its predominant product is a credit score builder utility that permits folks to immediately see and monitor their credit score scores, credit score studies and different information from credit score bureaus, free of charge. It additionally helps customers dispute inaccurate info on their credit score studies. If somebody doesn’t have a credit score historical past but, the app will assist them begin constructing scores.
By way of the app, clients can see their BI Checking Rating, or Indonesia’s nationally-recognized credit score info that’s utilized by virtually all monetary establishments to make credit score choices, in addition to their credit score rating, which is generated by credit score bureaus to find out the opportunity of somebody defaulting on a mortgage within the subsequent 12 months.
Additionally 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 verify on their information, the entire variety of credit score accounts they’ve, each lively 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 instructional content material and a options that makes it straightforward for patrons to dispute inaccurate information.
Some examples of insights embrace cost historical past, and permitting clients to verify 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 preserve a bank card restrict utilization beneath 30% to enhance their rating.
In a press release, AC Ventures founder and managing companion Adrian Li mentioned, “The chance in Indonesia is huge. Even because the area is comparatively untapped, the patron credit score market measurement is already north of US$185 billion. That mentioned, it has all the time been a problem right here as a result of lenders have by no means been in a position to attract holistic conclusions about debtors primarily based on restricted and fragmented info. 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 folks again answerable for their monetary futures.