Fintech Crowdo Collaborates with eFishery to Give Loans to Fish Farmers

Financial technology startup (fintech lending) Crowdo hooked up a start-up in the fisheries sector, eFishery. Crowdo claims, this is the first collaboration in ASEAN between neobanks and a technology-based fishery platform or aquaculture intelligence.

Chief Commercial Officer of Crowdo Indonesia Daniel Silalahi said that the collaborated service is neobank. These include an artificial intelligence (AI) based credit scoring engine, a fully digital underwriting process, access to funding, and a supply chain digitization platform.

He claims, the service allows SMEs to conduct supply chain transactions online while receiving specific recommendations for financing and banking products.

“Fish and eFishery breeders can focus on improving cultivation technology, while Crowdo’s solution will be utilized to accelerate their business from day one,” he said in a press release, last weekend (7/5).

Crowdo will strengthen the Kabayan or Kasih, Pay Later program from eFisheryFund. Kabayan is a program to purchase aquaculture needs from eFishery such as eFisheryFeeder and fish feed, with a tenor system. In this case, Crowdo provides direct loan facilities to farmers through the Kabayan feature.

Gibran Huzaifah, co-founder and CEO of eFishery, said that fish farmers have had difficulties in obtaining financing, because business patterns are considered to provide uncertain risk. “Whereas with the right approach, the fish farming business can be very profitable,” he said.

The Collaboration between the Two Companies Supports the Government’s Goals

According to the Directorate General of Fisheries and Aquaculture, the Covid-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the margins of fish and shrimp farmers by 20 to 30 percent due to lower retail prices and increased costs.

This situation has a negative impact on the situation of fish farmers who need more capital to buy fish feed while market consumption is decreasing.

The government, through an accelerated program to increase aquaculture production and linkage fisheries, is trying to revitalize this industry.

eFishery, with its aquaculture acumen, and Crowdo, with its supply chain digitization and banking and financing solutions, have a unique role to play in supporting these government goals.

It is the first platform to integrate operational digitization solutions with financing and banking products targeted as Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets.

SMEs can easily perform supply chain transactions online while receiving specific recommendations for financing and banking products seamlessly though Crowdo platform.

“The collaboration with Crowdo is expected to be able to provide support for cultivators in increasing their cultivation business and in the end, the fisheries industry can be more productive,” he said.

Through data and technology, eFishery can connect farmers with financial institutions and open access for fish cultivators to finance.

This collaboration with Crowdo is expected to be able to provide support for cultivators to increase their cultivation business and in the end, the fisheries industry can be more productive through real financial inclusion.

Crowdo Offers Added Value for MSMEs

Crowdo, a peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform made by PT Mediator Komunitas Indonesia, is increasingly focused on not just being ordinary digital lending and borrowing service platform during increasingly fierce industry competition.

Reona Shimada, Group CEO Crowdo believes that the P2P industry, which was originally born to fill the gaps in the shortage of conventional financing institutions, will begin to be disrupted again from within, to be precise by value-added P2P platforms.

“Especially for ‘traditional’ P2P which has succeeded in building large scale, but has a dependence on low prices, unprofitable platforms, or low technology that quickly makes this business model a commodity and unsustainable or unsustainable,” he explained, Thursday (18/3/2021).

Crowdo chooses added value as a technology solution. Because the needs of SMEs are sometimes not cheap loans, but partners who will help them grow. This is what the Neobank concept means.