Fintech Business Lending Continues to Advance during the Pandemic

Even though the pandemic has had a devastating impact on the economy, it has not made the peer to peer lending business sluggish. Based on data from the Financial Services Authority (OJK), the accumulated loan disbursement reached IDR 137.66 trillion as of October 2020.

This value grew 102.44% year on year (YoY) compared to the same position last year valued at IDR 68 trillion. Meanwhile, outstanding loans grew 18.39% YoY from IDR 11.19 trillion to IDR 13.24 trillion.

This performance was carried out by 155 fintech P2P lending companies registered with the OJK. Of these, 36 entities have full business permits. Meanwhile, in principle, there are 144 conventional P2P lending and 11 entities implementing sharia principles.

The Indonesian Joint Funding Fintech Association (AFPI) is still optimistic that the P2P lending business will continue to grow in the coming year. The association projects that fintech lending loans will reach at least IDR 86 trillion in 2021.

“It turns out that the adaptation of machine learning or credit scoring is very fast, so that readiness to grow back is already visible in October 2020,” said Executive Director of AFPI Kuseryansyah on Monday (7/12).

The realization of loans can increase because some of the fintech lenders are involved as banking partners in channeling funds to the National Economic Recovery (PEN) program. Kuseryansyah said that there are already six platforms that have participated in the program.

“I am sure that in the future there will be more who take part in this program because some are in the process with the bank. We have also discussed with the PEN committee regarding more active fintech lending participation and can help accelerate the PEN program, “he explained.

Lending on Akseleran Platform Increases

Co-Founder of Akseleran, Christopher Gultom, said that the platform has managed to channel a cumulative total productive business loan of more than IDR 1.7 trillion to around 2,500 loans until November. The loans are supported by more than 150,000 lenders (lenders) who are spread evenly throughout Indonesia.

Christopher revealed, in November 2020, Akseleran again recorded its highest record in distributing productive business loans for the last 3 years, amounting to IDR 120 billion, or continuing its record in October 2020 which reached IDR 115 billion.

“During the period from January to November 2020, Akseleran’s business loan distribution managed to grow by 32% compared to the same period in 2019. The fast distribution of Akseleran business loans is certainly in line with our principle to always maintain credit quality, which can be seen from the current total NPL of Akseleran which is currently available at 0.2% of the total business loans that have been distributed,” he added.

He continued that this also applies to the Akseleran loan channeling partners, where we maintain it by providing agreements that have agreed upon risk acceptance criteria by Akseleran partners and in addition, loans in Akseleran use credit insurance so that the risk of the Akseleran financial service partners quite well mitigated.

Alami Productive Loans has also Increased

Likewise, the organizer of sharia fintech PT Alami Fintek Sharia (Alami) continues to distribute productive loans to SMEs during pandemic. Until now, Alami has distributed loans worth IDR 256 billion.

The distribution throughout 2020 reached IDR 176 billion with an outstanding IDR 54 billion. The loan has been distributed to 86 SMEs throughout Indonesia. Alami also has more than 8,000 lenders on its platform with an average return of 15%.

Founder and CEO of Alami Dima Djani stated that loan disbursement to the new normal has grown rapidly. Even this November, Alami is targeting to distribute an accumulative loan of IDR 300 billion.

“This is still dominated by our invoice financing products. There hasn’t been a change in strategy due to the pandemic. We think that next year’s opportunities have the potential to be much better than 2020,” said Dima. He projects that loan disbursement throughout 2020 will be around IDR 220 billion.