SC Ventures, the FinTech and innovation arm of Standard Chartered, has entered into a MOU with Yabx.
Yabx is a company incubated by Comviva and part of the Mahindra Group to address a deep-rooted need for responsible consumer finance in Africa.
Africa has over 700 million mobile wallets, and about 450 million bank accounts. However, access to formal credit remain severely constrained due to poor credit infrastructure and the slowly evolving risk appetite of financial services players, especially traditional banks.
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digitisation in the financial sector and created a fertile environment for new and disruptive products to be taken to the market. The partnership between SC Ventures and Yabx is leveraging on this to create unique, Africa-specific products that will increase access of credit to the underbanked across Africa.
Given the scale and the complexity of the opportunity, SC Ventures and Yabx have taken a collaborative approach to jointly address the challenge.
SC Ventures claims that loans will be provided to customers for specific purposes like education and skill development using an innovative data-driven scoring and analytics engine that has been built with rich experience from African markets. These loan products will be initially launched in Uganda and then subsequently expanded to other countries in Africa.
Jiten Arora of SC Ventures said, “We are excited at the prospect of using a data-driven, technology-enabled partnership model to serve the underbanked through purpose-driven loans in Africa, a continent for which we have a deep understanding and a strong commitment towards.”
Yabx CEO Rajat Dayal added, “We have a lot of synergy with SC Ventures in Africa and together we are uniquely positioned to create a seamless embedded finance experience. This partnership further bridges the gaps in the current market, driving digital innovations and bringing significant benefits to the underserved population of Africa.”
Digital operating systems developer OpenFin preciously closed a strategic investment from SC Ventures to support the development of new products.
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