GoBear, CredoLab partner on credit scorecard app

SINGAPORE-BASED GoBear and CredoLab have partnered on an app that aims to reach the 16.8-million underbanked Filipino people.

In a statement, the companies said the Easy Apply app will utilize CredoLab’s artificial intelligencebased proprietary algorithms that extract and analyze data from applicants’ smartphones called “digital footprints.” These will then be turned into scorecards to be used in their credit card, loan, or insurance applications.

“More than 77% of Filipinos remain unbanked; less than 2% own a credit card. We strongly believe that through our partnership with CredoLab, we can drastically improve those numbers, and more importantly, provide further opportunities to the vast majority of Filipinos who deserve competitive credit services and yet have very limited access to them. We are very excited to bring this technology to our partners and help them reach a previously untapped audience,” Maria Java, country director of GoBear Philippines, was quoted as saying in the statement.

Users will need to go through GoBear’s Easy Choices, which will them understand what products suit their profile, before downloading and installing Easy Apply.

Easy Apply will also be launched in other countries, such as Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

“We are excited to be partnering with GoBear to help banks profitably serve their customers including the underbanked. Since our launch in 2016, through our use of non-traditional alternative data points, we have seen a significant drop in cost of risk, helped reduced the time-to-yes to a few seconds, and achieved almost 45% increase in approval rates,” Peter Barcak, co-founder and chief executive officer of CredoLab, said in the same statement. “I am optimistic that we can achieve similar results through this partnership.” —