IndiaLends, a financial technology startup, based out of Delhi may sound like your usual fintech company trying to make financial products affordable and accessible to common man. But there’s more to this startup, that it uniquely does—extensive use of analytics to count one. A team comprising of experienced professionals in finance, IIT, LBS, IIM, Stephen’s and various global banks are a few things that adds to their exceptional profiles.

Why IndiaLends?

An online platform providing customers with financial products and services—personal loan, credit cards, unsecured loans, instalment loans to name a few, IndiaLends connects the borrowers with lenders to help them get the best deal possible. Providing value-added services to their customers such as big-data analytics, credit risk assessment, automated workflows are some of the things that sets this start-up apart. As the company states “what makes our products attractive are the affordable interest rates and simplified procedure which has set us free from the traditional time consuming and complex financial processes”.

Sharing the idea behind the conception of IndiaLends with Analytics India Magazine, the company stated that 41% of the population in India continue to be unbanked and excluded from formal payment systems and organized lending. Moreover, the approval rates in the Indian unsecured market are one fifth of those in the western market. This is because of over-reliance on the Indian credit bureau scores which are built on weak and limited data and thus these data points never make it to credit modelling teams at the banks.

This is where IndiaLends stands firm with its core mission to make credit products more accessible and affordable to the common man and bring more customers under the ambit of organized lending. The company extensively uses analytics in its overall functioning.

The company proudly flaunts that it has disbursed $19 million in total and $6 million in the last three months, along with partnering with more than 35 regional and national lenders including some NBFCs and Banks. With a current average loan approval rate of 11%, about 250,000 customer visits in a month and over 1,00,000 app downloads, IndiaLends is surely growing at a faster pace.

Analytics fuelling business growth at IndiaLends-

“Technology and data analytics lie at the heart of everything we do”, says the company which was co-founded by Gaurav Chopra and Mayank Kachhwaha. With over 10 years of experience in consumer and business unsecured credit across the UK, US and India, Chopra has previously held various senior positions at Capital One. He has an MBA from London Business School, MSc from the London School of Economic and BA (Hons) in Mathematics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.

Kachhwaha, on the other hand is an engineer from IIT Chennai, with over 6 years of experience at Capital One in unsecured consumer credit across product verticals. His expertise includes loss forecasting, BASEL capital modeling, product valuations and fraud management.

“Most of our operations are driven by our technological and data analytics capabilities – from acquiring new customers on Social Media and Search, to collecting customer data and processing loan applications, to sending out real-time communications to specific customer segments, etc.”, shares the company.

It further adds that like any technology driven business, their technology and data analytics capabilities allows them to cater the needs of multiple customer segments at the same time and address these needs at scale. “This not only expedites the loan application and approval processes but also gives our customers a smooth and seamless customer experience with minimal human intervention”, it says.

IndiaLends also makes use of its machine learning algorithms to analyse market segments and adopt the right strategies to implement cross-selling practices. The use of alternate data helps in targeting the appropriate customers for the appropriate product to cater to the needs of a larger target segment, thus leading to growth and market expansion.

Analytics to offer consumer lending and credit underwriting-

The company notes that the Indian consumer credit market has grown to over $300 Billion, however, credit penetration continues to be low in India with financial institutions lending to less than 5% of Indian consumers. These 5% are those who have a very high credit score, high income, and are in possession of assets. The remaining people, who are either new to credit or have defaulted on credit before, do not get credit from banks. IndiaLends is working towards expanding the organised lending market in India through a superior credit underwriting model, risk based pricing and providing customers with tools and personalised data to improve their financial decision-making and well-being.

It is using credit underwriting and analytics to expand the organized lending market in India by attracting consumers to share their privileged data by offering them a range of services including loan products, credit reports, credit education, and expense management – going beyond the data points available in traditional lending models. It is expanding into markets such as new to credit and credit impaired segments using proprietary risk models developed by setting up a number of statistical tests. Moreover, it also sets up tests in partnership with select lenders to statistically test and learn segments and develop a unique risk framework.

The Roadmap ahead-

Recently selected in Google’s Accelerator Programme, IndiaLends strongly believes that being the only Indian Fintech startup to make it to the Program, it doesn’t want to leave any stones unturned to make the most of this opportunity. The company is sure that it would help them scale up their startup exponentially and increase their core competencies to improve their brand’s position in the market. The startup is looking forward to better capitalize on local markets.

“We are currently working towards rapid enhancement and personalisation of our existing products and services. Our product goals for the next six months are to enhance the app experience for our consumers by introducing additional utility features and improving personalization. This would help us increase customer engagement and overall cross-sell revenue”, said the company in closing.