GoBear acquires Singapore’s AsiaKredit

GoBear, Asia’s leading financial supermarket, has acquired Singapore’s leading digital consumer lender AsiaKredit, bolstering its plans to expand its business and regional reach.

AsiaKredit provides consumer finance products to underserved consumers in the Philippines. Through its flagship mobile app, pera247, the company has processed over one million loan applications via fast and convenient lines of credit not provided by traditional banks.

The purchase accelerates GoBear ’s plans to drive growth through digital lending; one of three key business pillars alongside digital insurance brokerage and the company’s financial supermarket, all built on the foundation of alternative data.

With robust risk management and automation, credit assessment decisions take place in a matter of minutes and time to cash disbursements in hours, bringing AsiaKredit more than 100 times growth in loans disbursed in the last two years.

“The establishment of an industry-leading lending business is a critical component of GoBear’s strategy to support our banking partners in providing loans to the many underserved consumers in Asia. With AsiaKredit’s sophisticated data-driven underwriting and collections capability, which sets them well apart from lenders in the region, the acquisition will allow GoBear to accelerate strategic plans by giving us access to end-to-end digital lending capabilities,” said Adrian Chng, chief executive officer of GoBear.

According to a study by Bain & Co., access to credit remains a challenge for many in Southeast Asia, with more than 70 percent of the region, or 296 million people, currently underbanked or unbanked.

With economic growth in developing countries set to decline sharply in 2020 due to the impact of COVID-19, providing consumers with access to credit will become increasingly important.

Last year, GoBear saw its revenue from consumer finance products increase by over 100 percent. By giving its users more access to financial products and services.

Aside from the Philippines and Singapore, GoBear is present in five other markets: Hong Kong SAR, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. To date, the company has served over 40 million users searching for more than 1,800 personal finance products.