Indonesia's fintech lending boom exploits shortfall in bank loans

Jakarta

FINTECH firms, offering loans as cheap as a few hundred dollars, are seeing a spike in lending in Indonesia where tens of millions of people have little or no access to bank credit - helping to alleviate a financing shortfall estimated at more than US$73 billion.

The emergence of these peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms has so far been welcomed by Indonesia's financial regulators who see them as offering a much needed service to cash-strapped businesses and consumers at a time when South-east Asia's biggest economy has been hobbled by sluggish bank lending.