Lendingkart Lends Credit Risk Tech To FI

India-based SME lender Lendingkart is considering a new revenue stream that would involve working with rival lenders.

Reports Friday (Dec. 16) said Lendingkart will offer its credit risk assessment technology to banks and other alt-lenders starting in 2017. According to Lendingkart Cofounder Harshvardhan Lunia, the company will look to expand its reach in the SME lending market over the next six months by having other banks use its credit risk analytics software.

“We plan to offer our analytics technology to other NBFCs [non-banking financial companies] and financial institutions sometime in 2017,” the executive said in an interview with Livemint. “We aim to increase our reach across various credit product, geography and customer segments by monetizing our data analytics and credit scoring platform, which other lenders can use to evaluate the creditworthiness of the borrowers.”

“Also,” he continued, “it will help us to disburse more loans without increasing our book size, thus increasing returns of assets for us.”

According to reports, Lendingkart‘s technology to assess a borrower’s creditworthiness considers more than 2,200 metrics and data points. They include cash flow, tax return documents and industry type.

Lunia explained that Lendingkart will explore multiple ways of sharing this technology with its industry peers and competitors. One way to do so is to co-lend with other FIs when SMEs need to borrow more money than a single lender can provide. The company may also charge other lenders for use of its credit assessment tool.

Last year, Lendingkart raised $10 million in venture capital from Saama Capital, Mayfield Fund, Shailesh Mehta and Ashvin Chadha.