The bank’s branch in Indonesia has announced a partnership to offer Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) loans to the mass market segment via digital channels.
Standard Chartered will offer small-ticket loans to customers in Indonesia via its partnership with Kredivo – one of the country’s largest and fastest-growing digital credit platforms, the bank announced on Thursday.
While Standard Chartered already enjoys a strong position in the retail affluent segment, we are strengthening and expanding our distribution channels to serve mass-market customers more efficiently,» Jeffrey Tan, Standard Chartered head of Consumer, Private and Business Banking (CPBB), Indonesia, said,
Customers can enjoy a fully digital onboarding and credit application process, with no face-to-face verification requirement, via Kredivo’s coverage of retailers and AI-driven credit scoring capabilities.
The bank hopes to ride on the accelerating adoption of digital financial services in Southeast Asia’s most populous nation, as well as improving market sentiment and retail sales as vaccination and pandemic-related metrics continue to improve, leading to higher demand for loans.
This announcement follows Standard Chartered’s recent partnership with BNPL platform Atome to deliver a wide range of financial services to consumers and merchants across key markets in Asia.
Kredivo has also been expanding of late – in August, the company launched in Vietnam through a joint venture with Phoenix Holding, a family investment company based in the country. FinAccel, Kredivo’s parent company also announced plans to go public via a $2.5 billion SPAC merger. The firm had raised US$90 million in 2019 during a Series C funding round to double down on its Southeast Asian expansion plans.