Home Credit Philippines aims to expand services to other sectors

FINANCING FIRM Home Credit Philippines (HCPH) is mulling to extend its services to furniture purchases, as well as flight bookings, as part of its expansion program over the next two years.

HCPH chief financial officer Zdenek Jankovsky said they will be injecting P18.6 billion in new capital until 2019 as they look to increase the firm’s partner stores and client base.

Mr. Jankovsky said they plan to raise their current 3,300 pointof-sales outlets by 50%.

To achieve this, he said HCPH is considering to partner with local furniture retailers and producers, as well as airlines and their ticketing offices.

The official said that through Home Credit Philippines’ expansion efforts, the company aims to book an P800- million profit within 2018.

This follows its target to break even this year.

Although Mr. Jankovsky declined to make estimates on its expected receivables by 2019, he noted that they see about P12-13 billion for this year alone.

The Czech officer said the financing firm currently records a credit default rate of about 5-6%, considerably low compared to banks’ average of 3%.

HCPH has been operating in the Philippines since 2015, starting with a client base of 100,000.

By the end of this year, the firm seeks to expand its customers to 2 million from the 1.5 million logged as of June.

“With our aggressive expansion, we need to grow our workforce rapidly as well, especially in the provinces. So we are also glad to be able to contribute employment opportunities to Filipinos across the country,” said Mr. Jankovsky.

Home Credit provides instore financing services for gadgets, appliances, and similar goods to those without credit cards and even to first-time borrowers — which constitute about 80% of their customer base. HCPH is the local unit of Home Credit B.V., a non-bank financial provider based in the Czech Republic.

Mr. Jankovsky said about twothirds of the firm’s financing business is composed of gadget loans. The remaining third meanwhile accounts for other home appliances.

“We are proud to have brought our unique, financially inclusive business model from Prague to nine other countries around the world, including the Philippines,” Mr. Jankovsky said.

“We are particularly happy that we are making an impact here, considering the large unbanked segment,” he added. •