AND Global to branch out LendMN service in other Asian countries
AND Global has received 2.8 million USD in investment from Rhinos Asset Management, a South Korean investment fund. The Singapore incorporated Mongolia-based company operates LendMN, one of the first fintech non-banking financial institutions in the country.
To date, the company has raised 18.8 million USD in funding. The latest investment is said to be used to expand the company’s lending services to the Philippines and Myanmar, and to increase their available loan pool in these new regions. LendMN will be rebranded as myLend and aiLend in the two countries.
According to the most recent financial report, the company lends 90,000 unsecured micro-loans per month in Mongolia and has found repayment to be 98.5 percent.
The company found that in the Philippines and Myanmar, roughly 131 million people have no access to traditional financial services but have high rates of smartphone penetration, at 48 percent and 80 percent respectively. The company is currently in talks with regulators and local partners to secure banking licenses in the two markets.
AND Global will attempt to fill in that market gap with its digital wallet which allows peer to peer money transfers, that has no service fee, and low-interest micro-loans with no collateral requirement. Moving forward, the company says integration with popular direct messaging services, like Viber and Facebook Messenger, will make P2P transactions quick and convenient with only a few clicks.
Viber became available as a lending platform after AND Global signed an agreement with Rakuten, the parent company of Viber and one of Japan’s largest online retailers.
Expansion is not only limited to the Philippines and Myanmar, as the company is using these two markets as testbeds and plans on further expansion into the Southeast Asia region. In addition, the company is reportedly planning to launch their platform as a service through a partnered cloud provider, free for any small financial institution to try out, and accessible via any internet connection.
“We want to become a successful international finance company that provides complete consumer financing services. Not only lending: savings, payments, wallets, leasing, everything,” AND Global CEO Anar Chinbaatar told Digital News Asia.
“I believe that the next generation of banking has already started, and will be prevalent around the world in three to five years. That’s why we are making such aggressive use of our time right now,” he added.
Speaking to e27.co, a tech news website, cofounder and CEO Anar Chinbaatar said one of the biggest reasons he pursued this business was because of his personal experiences with lending.
“Informal lending is very common in Mongolia. People were constantly asking to borrow money from me. I lost friends over it. Credit cards are not well developed in this country,” he said.
“Under-banked people still need access to financing. Because it is difficult for these people to open or maintain bank accounts, they have to use payday loans more often. Interest at Mongolian banks is 28 percent,” he added.
In Mongolia, the company will soon be allowed to lend more than 800 USD, double what is currently permitted by the Financial Regulatory Commission (FRC). In addition, it will also begin to provide micro entrepreneur loans of up to 10,000 USD in Mongolia.