FinAccel co-founders on why lending is different from the gaming business

After its funding announcement in June, FinAccel reveals what the company has done so far with its product Kredivo — and where the platform is heading

In June, fintech startup FinAccel announced that it has raised a seven-digit funding round led by Jungle Ventures, with participation from GMO Venture Partners, AlphaJWC Ventures, 500 Durians, and 500 Tuktuks.

Four months since the announcement, the company is strengthening its presence in the Indonesian market by launching its product, Kredivo, in Bandung and Surabaya, complemented with the launch of a 12-month instalment programme.

“We started out in Greater Jakarta Area because we want to test this market, which the most digitally penetrated [in Indonesia]. But now as we are getting more confident, we are planning to expand,” said FinAccel Co-founder and COO Umang Rustagi during an interview with e27.

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According to 2013 statistics from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, of the 80 million internet users in Indonesia, 7.6 per cent are based in Surabaya, while 4.6 per cent are based in Bandung. This makes the two cities the second and third biggest market for e-commerce in the country.

“So we started out very slowly. It’s a lending business where you got to be very careful; it’s not like gaming business which you can target one million app installs from Day One. [But] we should be able to pass 10,000 users by next month,” says CEO Akshay Garg.

With Kredivo, FinAccel claims to have secured partnerships with more than 50 merchants including Bhinneka.com, Global Teleshop, Sepulsa, and VIP Plaza. It also teams up with BFI Finance to manage payment guarantee with its partner-merchants.

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Run by a team of 25 employees, the company expects to grow, along with the planned market expansion. “We are growing very rapidly. Any number that we are telling you right now will be irrelevant by next week,” says Garg.

The numbers that matter

FinAccel was founded by CEO Akshay Garg, COO Umang Rustagi, and Head of Product Engineering Alie Tan. Each had different experiences in various industries from digital advertising, risks and operations, and consumer products development.

“Indonesia is basically our home market,” says Garg.

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“Indonesia’s the most interesting for us just because this is the market with the biggest credit card penetration gap. One very interesting stat is that, if you look at the size of Indonesian economy, with nearly a trillion US Dollar in terms of GDP, there’s no country of this economic size where the credit to GDP ratio is so low. It’s literally the lowest,” he explained further.

From the supply side, existing financial institutions such as banks and credit bureaus do not make easier for Indonesian to attain credit history.

This is where Kredivo jumps in by giving a solution that includes three important factors.

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“We are targetting three things. Transparency: get people access to credit based on their own credit needs. Convenience: we want to do it as convenient as possible, as opposed to waiting for 17 to 18 days and signing multiple docs. And the third is access: which not just about becoming your risk provider, but also as an end-to-end service, enabling you to buy whatever it is that you want to buy,” Garg said.

When asked about their next big agenda, Garg stated that product-market fit will be their next major focus.

“The main matrix that we look at is not mere numbers … Because it’s also important to look at the right kind of people. The number that we are looking at, the one we go to bed thinking about, for every user that has activated, how many of them actually come back?” he asks.

“That’s the number that we are looking at, that tells us how good of a product we have created,” he concludes.

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