Credit Without A Card

Akshay Garg’s fintech Kredivo provides digital credit without a card.

- Shintya Felicitas And Nelsin Wijaya

The penetration of credit cards in Indonesia barely reaches 3% of the population, with only 17.5 million cards in circulation in 2018 mainly due to the low approval rate from issuers. Digital startup Kredivo wants to facilitate creditworthy people, especially millennials, who have a tough time getting credit cards from banks because of the lack of loan history, by providing them digital credit without the physical card.

Kredivo’s product is completely digital-based, from the application process to the payment system. Users can get a credit limit of between Rp 500,000 to Rp 20 million based on their credit score, which is decided based on an AI algorithm instead of credit bureau data.

Kredivo Chief Executive Akshay Garg, 39, started the company in late 2015. He claims his company needs less than two minutes to generate a credit score, based on data from diverse sources, such as the applicant’s mobile phone data (call logs and contact list) and third-party data (social media, e-commerce, and e-banking accounts). The digital data is stored and mined to give each individual a real-time credit score. “To apply for a credit card, you need easily one month, sometimes longer. Meanwhile, the process of installing the Kredivo app to getting a credit decision takes less time than cooking instant noodles,” Akshay says.

However, he makes sure that Kredivo is free from data fraud and breach. With about a hundred of data points collected, Akshay claims it is nearly impossible to defraud the system.