ID Finance, a Barcelona-headquartered company with Russian roots, has just secured $50 million in debt funding to fuel its expansion across Latin America. The funding includes $15 million from TKB, a Russian bank which is supported by the EBRD and the IFC, among other backers.
After several years of operations in Russian-speaking countries, Spain and Poland, ID Finance launched its online lending service Moneyman in Brazil in December 2016.
The $50 million funding will be used to develop further this Brazilian business as well as to launch near-prime credit products and online POS-lending service in new countries of the region.
“We’re eyeing Columbia, Peru and Mexico, in particular,” the company’s Head of PR Dmitry Gorokh told East-West Digital News.
The Latin American online lending market has a huge potential, Gorokh believes.
“This region has about 630 million people, including 360 million with high-speed Internet access and 200 million smartphone users. E-commerce and online lending are growing as telecom services are becoming ubiquitous. The potential annual volume of online lending in Brazil alone could soon reach $7 billion,” he said.
ID Finance launched its Moneyman online lenduing service in Brazil in December 2016
In emerging markets there is “a massive structural consumer demand for credit [while traditional players tend to offer] highly uncompetitive financial services, making credit insufficiently available,” commented ID Finance co-founder and CEO Boris Batine.
ID Finance defines itself as a data science, credit scoring and digital finance business. Founded in 2012, the company relies on an advanced IT and risk management system, which “collects and analyzes thousands of data points in real time.”
The company uses alternative sources of data to target “a much larger portion of the population” than those usually applying for loans.
ID Finance reached breakeven in 2015 and claims to be the number one online lender in Russia and neighboring Russian speaking countries. It also operates in Poland, Spain and most recently Brazil, now issuing in total over 50,000 loans every month.
Recently ID Finance CEO Boris Batine discussed “the limits of Google’s global search monopoly” in an opinion piece published by East-West Digital News.
