MoneyGram, CreditCare Team to Help Unbanked in Philippines, Vietnam, Nigeria

Consumer finance company CreditCare Technology has teamed up with MoneyGram to expand further into the emerging markets of the Philippines, Vietnam and Nigeria.

Based in San Francisco, CreditCare provides financial products to unbanked people, including personal loans and remittances.

“The partnership with MoneyGram is a significant milestone in our mission to bring inclusive financial services to users in emerging markets,” a spokesperson for CreditCare Technology said in a news release Tuesday (Sept. 6).

“We believe financial services should be easy, low-cost and accessible to not just 10% of the population. The CreditCare and MoneyGram partnership provides greater access, security and simplicity for people to remit funds and get access to lines of credit.”

Launched in January 2019, CreditCare was founded by Julia G. Ko. According to the release, Ko — after two years of rejections from regulators — secured non-depository bank licenses in the Philippines and Vietnam.

“With regulatory approval, Ko was able to integrate with a network of infrastructure consisting of 20,000+ physical locations, operated by SoftBank subsidiaries, to service consumers. This includes convenient physical locations like 7-Eleven stores, SM Mall, Robison’s Groceries and BDO Banks,” the release said.

With Moneygram’s help, the company will expand to another 12,000 locations and will use Moneygram’s back-end infrastructure and nine partner banks to set up operations in Nigeria.

See also: Infrastructure Alone Won’t Fix Nigeria’s Un- and Underbanked Problem

As PYMNTS noted in April, Nigeria is home to an estimated 38 million people, or 36% of adults, who are financially excluded.

The government of Africa’s most populous country has set a goal of 95% financial inclusion by 2024 — an ambitious target that will require institutions to rethink initiatives and policies to speed the delivery of financial inclusion services.

“The digital revolution has accelerated financial access for EMs [emerging markets], and decreased the high cost of customer acquisitions with increased efficiency in underwriting,” said Ko. “This presents compelling investment opportunities and cross-selling of products within fast-growing economies.”

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