GoBear, Mambu, CredoLab team up to accelerate Asia lending business

FINANCIAL services startup GoBear will partner cloud banking platform Mambu and alternative credit scoring provider CredoLab to accelerate its lending business across Asia, Mambu said in a statement on Monday.

Mambu's composable banking solution will form the core system in GoBear's lending architecture, which is set to expand in the Philippines this year, with additional markets to follow.

GoBear currently operates in seven markets: Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

Mambu's cloud-native banking platform lets users build a needs-based banking or lending solution that is more agile and cost-effective than the legacy approach to core banking, Mambu said.

Meanwhile, CredoLab develops digital scorecards based on smartphone device metadata using an AI-based (artificial intelligence) algorithm that looks through millions of datasets to find the most predictive behavioural patterns before converting them into alternative credit scores.

It said that this enables lenders such as banks, consumer finance and insurance companies to make "the most granular assessments possible of their applicants".

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GoBear in 2018 partnered CredoLab to launch smartphone Easy Apply in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. The feature allows banks, financial institutions and lenders to extend credit using AI.

CredoLab chief executive Peter Barcak said the company's ability to generate a credit score for customers who cannot prove their creditworthiness in the conventional financial system made it "uniquely positioned to support GoBear as they diversify their business and move into lending in a controlled way".

GoBear chief lending officer Mike Singh said using fintech solutions, such as those from Mambu and CredoLab, would help it bring access to responsible credit to more of the region's 296 million unbanked or underbanked population.