Fuse Lending sees strong credit growth

FUSE LENDING, Inc., a subsidiary of Globe Telecom, Inc.’s financial technology arm Mynt, expects double- to triple-digit loan growth this year after disbursements hit P100 billion as of July.

Loan growth for the rest of the year will be driven by holiday expenses, which could prompt consumers to use GCash products such as GGives and GScore, Fuse Lending President and Chief Executive Officer Tony Isidro said to reporters on Wednesday

“GGives enables customers to better afford bigger-ticket items like gadgets, cellphones, and computers, even furniture for the house,” he added.

GGives is GCash’s buy now, pay later product powered by Fuse Lending.

“Today, we’ve disbursed over P100 billion to over three million customers. And we know it’s a much bigger market than that… It’s a significant portion of the user base of GCash at the moment, but we believe that with the current products and more products in the pipeline, we’ll be able to create an even bigger positive impact to more and more Filipinos,” he said.

“While we disbursed [loans] to three million Filipinos, there’s so many more millions of our kababayans that need access to fairer loans,” he added.

Loan growth will also be supported by GCash’s in-house credit scoring system, GScore, Mr. Isidro said.

“We continue to push the envelope. We believe we’re in a good place right now, especially with the innovations we did with GScore, which is our proprietary trust score, we’ll enable more and more Filipinos to have access to fairer loans,” he added.

Majority or 65% of the loans disbursed as of July went to retail and consumers, while the remaining 35% went to micro and small businesses, Mr. Isidro said.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, GCash launched Sakto Loans, an extension of GLoan, GCash’s instant cash loan, and GGives, its buy now, pay later loan.

GCash users may borrow P100 up to P1,000 with no interest, payable in 14 or 30 days, GCash said in a statement.

“Sakto Loans offers an added comprehensiveness to our already extensive product lineup. In instances where we only need a small amount to get by, this nano-loan feature will save us the time and energy of having to borrow from family and friends or even informal lenders,” Mr. Isidro said in a statement.

He said the product was made after an internal study found that while nine out of 10 Filipinos rely on loans, 57% of them tap informal lenders to make ends meet.

“Sakto Loans serves as an expansion of our suite of lending options GLoan, GCredit and GGives, which has provided users with a convenient way to borrow money with just a few taps on their phone. Through access to fair lending, we are able to provide more Filipinos access to borrowing means that truly prioritizes their needs,” he said.

“By using GGives or GLoans Sakto, Filipinos are now given the opportunity to borrow small amounts which they can use to pay for their daily transactions whether it’s online or offline,” he added. — AMCS