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Indonesia’s credit score bureaus at the moment have about 92 million credit score data, however the founders of SkorLife say many individuals have bother accessing their very own information. That’s why they constructed the app, which not solely lets folks see their credit score histories at no cost, but additionally provides customized recommendation on how one can enhance information. The Jakarta-based startup introduced at the moment 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 instances 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 obtainable for public obtain quickly. The corporate’s new funding will probably be used on product growth, new hires and advertising and marketing. SkorLife at the moment 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 embrace 5x and BookMyShow Southeast Asia. The 2 met in 2018 whereas organising a partnership between Seize and BookMyShow to supply ticketing companies via Seize’s tremendous app.
SkorLife founders Ongki Kurniawan and Karan Khetan
Kurniawan tells TechCrunch the 2 spent a variety 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 gadgets as a result of they imagine they may get rejected in the event that they strategy banks,” he stated, including that seven out of 10 mortgage candidates do certainly get rejected. “This was additional validated after talking with numerous trade specialists. We discovered that Indonesia’s shopper 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 may 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 “revenue worthiness.”
“The factor to recollect just isn’t everybody who has excessive revenue can pay their debt and never everybody who has a low revenue is not going to pay their debt,” Kurniawan stated.
Kurniawan stated that most individuals in Indonesia are unaware they’ll 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 determine how one 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 must go to an OJK workplace, or wait days for a web based appointment. The second, paid route includes prospects going to 3 licensed credit score bureaus in Indonesia to get their credit score experiences. However these experiences value cash, and Kurniawan says they’re many pages lengthy “and never designed to be digested by shoppers as a result of it’s supposed for use by analysts in monetary establishments.”
SkorLife solves these issues by giving folks free entry to credit score scores they’d in any other case have to leap via hurdles to get. Its important product is a credit score builder software that allows folks to immediately see and monitor their credit score scores, credit score experiences and different information from credit score bureaus, at no cost. It additionally helps customers dispute inaccurate data on their credit score experiences. If somebody doesn’t have a credit score historical past but, the app will assist them begin constructing scores.
By way of the app, prospects can see their BI Checking Rating, or Indonesia’s nationally-recognized credit score data that’s utilized by nearly 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.
Additionally they see what components go into their credit score rating, together with their fee 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 entire variety of credit score accounts they’ve, each energetic and inactive, and excellent balances.
That information is then used to create AI-based, customized insights for every buyer that they’ll 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 embrace fee historical past, and permitting prospects to examine invoice dates and set reminders, age of credit score (or encouraging prospects to not shut a card that has been open for a very long time), and utilization. SkorLife recommends that prospects preserve a bank card restrict utilization beneath 30% to enhance their rating.
In a press release, AC Ventures founder and managing associate Adrian Li stated, “The chance in Indonesia is huge. Even because the house is comparatively untapped, the patron credit score market measurement 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 primarily based 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 folks again in command of their monetary futures.