The fintech startup Fairbanc’s steps to expand to Indonesia is getting intensive. Moreover, they secured new funding for the pre-series A stage. Several investors involved including ADB Ventures, Accion Venture Lab, East Ventures, and Sampoerna Strategic Group.
The new funding was obtained after Fairbanc received an investment with undisclosed nominal from 500 Startups and Indonesian billionaire Michael Sompoerna earlier this year to expand its business coverage in Indonesia.
In its official statement, the company is said to scale up loans to MSME players in Indonesia with limited access to working capital. Previously, the World Bank estimated MSMEs credit shortage in Indonesia would reach $166 billion.
Accion’s President & CEO, Michael Schlein said, micro merchants are the most vulnerable segment to the economic impact, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic which will last for a long time. “Fairbanc can fill the access gap to credit for business players. That way, they can do operational and maintain livelihoods,” he said.
Meanwhile, ADB Ventures’ Senior Fund Manager, Daniel Hersson added, Fairbanc has a unique and different position in the microenterprise inventory financing market. His participation in this funding will help Fairbanc to accelerate Indonesia’s financial inclusion and support climate resilience in the Asia Pacific region.
Business Expansion in Indonesia
Fairbanc’s Founder & CEO, Mir Haque revealed that this new funding will be used to expand the network of distributor partners to strengthen its technology team in Indonesia. Currently, Fairbanc loan access has been connected to 60 thousand merchants. Some of these big consumer brands include Unilever, L’oreal, and Danone networks.
His team is currently developing a product recommendation system that can help merchants’ inventory planning when there is a natural disaster since Indonesia is a country prone to natural disasters.
“Through this loan, we are able to help unbanked and underbanked merchants to boost revenue growth by increasing the inventory of business players. Since 2019, Fairbanc through these merchants has helped MSMEs to drive sales up to 35% by reducing the NPL ratio to almost zero,” Haque said.
Fairbanc works with a large FMCG company to offer “Buy Now Pay Later” productive loans to 10,000 retailers without having to apply via smartphone. Fairbanc uses AI-based credit scoring that can help process microcredit loans instantly.
With a system integrated into various consumer brands, Fairbanc can access merchant orders and payment track records. Companies can further utilize this data to underwrite loans and boost merchant sales by keeping an efficient operating cost.
In previous reports, Fairbanc said that it has a slightly different business model from others. Fairbanc makes money by optimizing direct cash payments to distributors and using discounts from sales volumes. That way, micro merchants are not charged with interest and additional fees from FMCG merchants and their distributors.
Several fintech players in Indonesia has accommodated similar concept through invoice financing services. In order to maximize the paylater potential for business people, Investree has recently launched a similar new product, in collaboration with Andalin. Moreover, there is AwanTunai and several other players are trying to facilitate the same needs.
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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian