Webinar | Commonwealth digital lending markets in Africa feat Finch Technologies’ CEO Michael Bowren

Digital lending, or alternative lending, has become a prominent driver of growth of African citizen banking and is also revolutionising the continent’s overall consumer credit market. Surveys have found that 40% of Africans prefer online payment and financial platforms which can help contextualise the 102% increase in online alternative financing from US$104 million in 2017 to US$563.8 million in 2022 at an annual growth rate of 5.7% predicted till the year 2026. Such alternative lending platforms that use different measurements for assessing an individual’s credit score, have become critical for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that represent approximately 80% of all African businesses yet face a gap of US$3.4 trillion in funding due to their failure to meet the demands of traditional credit scoring and bank requirements. By allowing the growth drivers of the African economy to attain capital from online platforms, African businesses and rising middle class will be given the opportunity to expand and create better domestic opportunities for employment and capital raising.

In this webinar, Michael Bowren, CEO of Finch Technologies, provides a comprehensive analysis of the digital consumer and business lending ecosystem in Sub Saharan Africa and describes the friction points of traditional lending that results in high costs and application drop off rates as the problem he and his team at Finch Technologies hope to tackle through their modular technology startup that provides digitized lending services from the beginning of the application process all the way to the final step of the disbursement of funds. He explains the many benefits of digital lending in improving process efficiency, time management and consumer experience which results in increased revenues per loan for the lender and an overall improved and accessible experience for the borrower.

Finch Technologies is a FinTech startup based in South Africa that powers financial access across Africa. It was founded in 2016 with the creation of ‘Fincheck’, South Africa’s first independent financial services marketplace. The company’s marketplace expanded significantly in 2020 when it took over FundingHub, South Africa’s biggest business finance marketplace, through a management buyout. In the subsequent year Finch Technologies also created its own digital onboarding tool, ‘Gathr’, to streamline the technical processes for their partners and clients.

Timecodes:
00:00 Julia Charlton's welcome speech
03:05 Mateena Hammad about Global and Commonwealth Digital Lending Markets
11:32 Michael Bowren about digital consumer and business lending ecosystem in Sub Saharan Africa
28:28 Michael Bowren about himself
30:04 Michael Bowren about access to the platform
34:12 Michael Bowren about AI
38:09 Michael Bowren about growing the business
49:14 Michael Bowren about differences in the approach between the consumer marketplace and the finance market
50:46 Michael Bowren about competitive landscape
54:00 Michael Bowren about funding environment in South Africa
57:54 Q&A session
1:01:40 Julia Charlton's closing remarks

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