Social Lender Team will be at Seamless Africa Conference holding from the 14th – 15th of March at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
Bade Adesemowo, Co-founder at Social Lender will be speaking at the Seamless Payments sessions.
The conference seeks to explore the challenges, opportunities and trends that Africa’s leading banks and disruptors have to offer.
Social Lender will be at the 2017 Fintech Fair organized by CGAP. The 2017 CGAP partners Event holds in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania from February 7-9, 2017.
CGAP (the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor) is a global partnership of 34 leading organizations that seek to advance financial inclusion. Housed at the World Bank, CGAP combines a pragmatic approach to responsible market development with an evidence-based advocacy platform to increase access to the financial services the poor need to improve their lives.
The event involves several financial service providers (banks, telcos, digital platforms, donors and others) who are keen to learn and share their experiences expanding financial services to low-income customers. It kicks off with a “Fintech Day” on Tuesday Feb 7th showcasing key innovations in financial services. Social Lender will be showcasing its innovative technology.
Social Lender’s CEO, Faith Adesemowo will also be in attendance for the networking Fintech Fair cocktail during the event.
With strong partnerships in Nigeria (Sterling Bank) and South Africa (ABSA Bank / Barclays Bank), Social Lender is enabling access to formal credit to Africans who otherwise would have no access using its proprietary Social Reputation Score.
If you or your financial institution would like to meet with Faith in Dar es Salaam, kindly contact founders@sociallenderng.com.
Social Lender was featured in the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) focus group on Digital Financial Services (DFS) report. The report identified and evaluated ID and authentication systems, both private and state-led for their use and impact on DFS and financial inclusion.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is the United Nations specialized agency in the field of telecommunications, information and communication technologies (ICTs). The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) is a permanent organ of ITU. ITU-T is responsible for studying technical, operating and tariff questions and issuing.
Social Lender is making a huge impact on the financial inclusion objectives for Africa.
We are excited about our growth as a company. We can do much more with the help of more strategic partners. You can reach out to founders@sociallenderng.com for partnership opportunities.
The full report is at :http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/studygroups/2017-2020/09/Documents/ITU_FGDFS_Report_IdentityandAuthentication.pdf
About Social Lender
Social Lender is a lending solution based on social reputation on mobile, online and social media platforms.
The solution is designed to bridge the gap of immediate fund access for people with limited access to formal credit. Social Lender uses its own proprietary algorithm to perform a social audit of the user on social media, online and other related platforms and gives a Social Reputation Score to each user. Loans are guaranteed by the user’s social profile and network allowing users to then borrow from banks and other financial institutions based on their social reputation.
You can find out more at www.sociallenderng.com
We introduce the the #iRep #SocialLender Challenge. Those who Rep #SocialLender best will win prizes.
Joining is Simple:
#SocialLender #Nigeria56 Independence Challenge.
Post a Picture in your Nigerian Traditional Attire to Social Lender Page.
Steps:
1. Generate a customised display picture in your Nigerian traditional attire at sociallender.circleng.com.
We are currently running #SocialLender #SelfieChallenge on our Facebook Page. It will run till September 15th and the Selfie with the most number of likes will win the prize.
It is easy to enter. Just submit a cool group selfie with friends and post it as a comment below the post on the Social Lender Facebook Page.
You can submit an entry by visiting: http://www.bit.ly/sociallenderselfiechallenge
We have seen some amazing entries. Will yours be one of them?
Social Lender was featured in the BBC news feature article with the title “How your social media reputation could secure you a loan”.
Find below some excerpts
“For example, Nigeria’s Social Lender looks at borrowers’ social media profiles to assess their creditworthiness.
One of the issues lenders face is that it is near impossible to obtain adequate data about people, particularly in rural areas. So mobile and web are proving useful ways of gathering it.
Social Lender uses its own algorithm to assign a “social reputation score” to each user, with “social guarantors” acting like referees validating their trustworthiness.
As the youth-orientated website strapline has it: “Get rep, get cash, stay fly”.
“The solution is designed to bridge the gap of immediate fund access for people with limited access to formal credit,” says co-founder Faith Adesemowo.”
Nigerian lending platform Social Lender allows users to access small amounts of credit based on their social media reputation, bypassing traditional means of getting a loan.
The aim is to license the technology to banks and financial institutions, which then incorporate it into their own brands. As of now it has only been licensed to Nigeria’s Sterling Bank.
By way of its own proprietary algorithm, it assigns a social reputation score (SRS) to each client – which determines creditworthiness and whether they are eligible for a loan or not. The SRS is based on a client’s information available on social media platforms. Users can also submit additional ‘social collateral’ to up their SRS.
Co-founders Bade Adesemowo and Faith Adesemowo provided How we made it in Africa with a brief overview of their business operations.
1. How did you finance your start-up?
We bootstrapped to start and, months later, made our first sale to Sterling Bank Nigeria by way of licensing the solution. [We also received funding from] Barclays Bank (ABSA) and the Techstars Accelerator.
2. If you were given US$1m to invest in your company now, where would it go?
We are looking to scale very rapidly in Nigeria, South Africa and across the rest of Africa. The funding would go to adding more data points to the system, hiring more developers and improving the platform.
3. What risks does your business face?
Unsecured lending typically sees about 10-15% default rate and so managing this risk is a major challenge.
4. So far, what has proven to be the most successful form of marketing?
Online marketing via social media and various online portals.
5. Describe your most exciting entrepreneurial moment.
Signing the commercial contract with our first partner bank.
6. What has been your biggest mistake?
Allowing only the licensed financial institutions to run and manage the marketing communication of Social Lender.
Source: How we made it In Africa
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Accessing small personal loans in Nigeria from the traditional financial institutions has always been a challenge for many people. However, with wider mobile penetration, small finance institutions are providing innovative solutions to people. Faith Adesemowo, executive director of Social Lender spoke to FRANK ELEANYA concerning the innovative service the start-up provides to individuals.
What do you do with social lender?
Social Lender is an online platform to give access to financial institutions and banks to be able to reach certain demography of people who otherwise will not have access to funds. It makes use of a unique algorithm that calculates and put together a digital fingerprint, which can be used to access formal credit. It is just like your credit card system. Credit cards are not readily available to a large population in Nigeria but we have come up with an alternative way of accessing formal credit using social and digital frameworks.
Who are the specific people?
We are talking about people who are banked but do not have access to what we call the credit card. We are talking about people who need urgent money for emergency and will not be able to ask their banks for it. Definitely, the financial institutions will ask for collateral and we are providing different collateral. With your digital fingerprint you can now access a bank credit.
What criteria do you employ when considering someone for credit?
We take into consideration the digital print. We have access points, one being social media, we are including mobile data and we put together all of these. Over 70 factors go into our algorithm. Our algorithm is able to calculate what we call the social reputation score. The social reputation score is based on what the algorithm has been able to calculate from the users’ digital fingerprint. We are going to include machine learning in the coming months
What is the process?
What a user will typically do is- I need N10, 000 in the middle of the night, because we do only micro-lending, I will simply go on the platform. I will log in via my Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn account. At the backend, the algorithm will audit and give a reputation score. The way it works is that, we are not the lender; we are just the platform that gives the access. What happens is that whichever financial institution is on board, I as a user can queue my financial institution and then proceed to request for cash. Every user can choose whatever bank they are comfortable with. The bank we have on our platform is Sterling Bank Plc. We have some major banks that will be coming on board very soon. As for the social reputation score on which the loans are giving out is a business rule for the financial institutions. Each financial institution agrees what social reputation score loans are to be given. The score ranges from 0 percent to 100 percent. If you have a score from 15% upwards, you can access credit.
How can a user build social reputation score?
As you get on the platform and audit is performed, what the audit is looking at is your communication. Of course your account should have been over a year old, an audit would not be done unless the account is over a year old. What we do first is to make sure that this account is more than a year old. Then we look at the digital fingerprints. We look at your network and how many people are in contact with you. Basically we try to get as much information as possible. The beautiful thing about social lender is that we are a community-based platform. You can actually determine how much access we get. You can give us access to your friends, your wall; you will choose how much access you will give to the platform. After giving all of that access, you still have a score of 10 percent. The next is to introduce someone as a social guarantor. What the social guarantor does is to digitally guarantee your loan. No social guarantor can guarantee all the money; it has to be spread among different people. Like we said, we are making communities depend on each other and trust each other. We are bringing the financial institutions and communities together. When you add up social guarantor unto the platform, automatically your score will improve. With a social guarantor you are more than likely to access your credit.
Do you often deal with issues concerning privacy?
The truth is that you have to give us access. You log on to the system and there are terms and conditions you are meant to read and accept. We do not violate your privacy. We give you the box and you tick to grant access to social lender.
Is the platform open to small businesses?
We will definitely get there someday. The platform is relatively new; we are just over a year now. We want to be able to understand the system better. We also want to add things like machine learning and add more data point to give us a more robust view of what the demography is. To be honest, some SMEs are already there. We have a lot of testimonials. We have feedback. We are able to see what users want to use the money for and we have verified testimonials- people who have actually started businesses like a recharge card business. Whatever N10, 000 can do for you. We are looking to increase the maximum limit that will be dependent on a lot of factors.
How quick is it?
Honestly from the point of application, typically ten minutes. The only thing that will lengthen the time will be for first time users. During registration we need to be able to get your details, your bank account and so on. The registration process might typically depend on how fast the customer is, one hour. Subsequently you can just send SMS, USSD and 5 other channels to access cash after getting a reputation score
What role does the guarantor play in the case of a bad loan?
There is a message we sent to you clearly defining what a guarantor is. Should any default happen the guarantor bears some of the burden. There are two people, there is the social guarantor and there is the social referee. The social referee simply says, “I know this fellow, I have no obligations whatsoever.” For the social guarantor, in case he does not pay the money “I am willing to stand surety for him.”
What is the interest rate?
The interest rate is largely dependent on the financial institution that is involved. Sterling Bank will do about ten percent. Most financial institutions will do between five percent and ten percent. It is a business rule and it depends on how they want to go about it.
Have you had a default?
One amazing thing about the social lender is that we have able been to manage our default rate to at least five percent
Getting cash has never been this easy, just 3 simple steps based on your Social Reputation; 1. Connect with Facebook or Twitter, 2. Apply for cash and, 3. Get your cash fast. #SocialLender #BeCashful