BANKING
“ We support deposits , transactional products and lending . And now crypto is becoming another product set that we support .”
Data , financial history and breaking new boundaries Another aspect that digital banking has brought to emerging markets is the ability to glean data from other sources , so that customers underserved by traditional banks can now gain access to loans and finance services . Credit checks in the conventional sense are no longer required .
Betrand explains , “ There are some really smart initiatives by new players coming into the market . The telco sector is an example . They already have a huge amount of data about their customers . They already know that their customers pay $ 100 a month for their mobile phone . They know they pay it on time . They know that they ' ve been a good customer for four or five years . On that data they could make a decision ."
It ’ s these innovations that are boosting SMEs and seeing massive uptake in the micro lending space across the region , and they are also leading to partnerships between fintechs .
“ A lot of decisions were previously made on single data points . Now we ' re seeing the ability to consolidate lots of different data points from different sources and they can
82 January 2022