Social Lender

Social Lender is a fintech startup changing the lives of thousands in Africa (currently 2 Countries - Nigeria & South Africa) by giving them access to formal credit.  It uses an Innovative Model (Social Reputation Scoring) and is available to users that do not have smartphones (using USSD and SMS channels).

Social Lender is a lending solution based on social reputation on mobile, online and social community 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.

Over 50% of Adult Africans lack access to formal credit. Sub Saharan Africa faces dual problems when it comes to access to credit. First there is the absolute lack of access to credit for a large percentage of people across Africa because of the lack of traditional collateral and the ineffective traditional credit scoring system. Majority of these people who lack access to credit are young professionals, small business owners, National Youth corps members and students. The second problem, is length of time it takes to pay out the loans in the event that the loan has been approved. The pay-out process usually involves a lot of hurdles and physical bureaucracies.

Our initial target is an addressable market of 100 million people across Africa, which we can target with the right strategic partnerships. The customer segmentation is youth between the age of 18 – 40 who are currently under-banked or lack access to formal credit. Some of these people are young professionals, small business owners, National Youth corps members and also students.

How Social Lender address individual needs: With Social lender providing access to formal credit for a vast number of people in Africa (50% of Adult population), individuals can now access quick which also leads to zero hunger, no poverty and economic growth.

Social Lender delivers cash guaranteed by social reputation in most cases within 10 minutes. In three easy steps, users are able to get quick cash from Social Lender. First, users access Social Lender’s platform using any of the following channels; Web, SMS, USSD, Mobile App (Partner App Add-On or Dedicated Apps), Partner Bank ATMs, APIs or Pay with Social Lender (E-commerce Checkout). Immediately, a social audit is conducted on the user (with user's permission) and the user obtains a social reputation score based on their digital fingerprint. Second, the user applies for cash using any of the available channels. Third, funds are approved based on partner specific business rules and funds is disbursed to the users' verified Account (Bank Account or Mobile Money Account) usually within 10 minutes.

Social Lender uses its own proprietary algorithm to perform a social audit of the users’ online, on mobile, on social media and other related platforms and give a Social Reputation Score to each user. Users can borrow from banks and other financial institutions based on their Social Reputation Score. Social Reputation Score can be improved by providing more information e.g. social reputation score is improved by the introduction of Social Guarantor who provides electronic personal guarantee on the personality of the borrower or the transaction.

What makes our solution innovative is our social reputation scoring and social guarantor model which can be licensed to financial institutions in this group.

Other Alternative credit scoring companies like Lenddo, Kreditech and Hello Soda are exploring this market from the point of view of big data only and not from the point of view of reputation is Social Communities.

The Users typically would ask their friends and families for soft loans which may in many cases not be available. In some instances, the users want to borrow anonymously without their friends and families’ knowledge. 

Financial Institutions ignore this huge market today because it is too expensive for them to deal with this market segment using traditional banking channels. Social Lender bridges this gap by providing access to this huge demography.

These customer testimonial sums up the impact Social Lender is making on our every day Users' lives: 

https://blog.sociallenderng.com/testimonial-category/sterling-bank-social-lender/ 

Social Lender is currently serving over 65,000 people

Social Lender hope to serve over 100,000 people in one year later and over 250,000 people in five years later.

Our goal within the next year and next five years is to make sure that over 1 million Africans have access to formal credit. Our goal is also to solve the identification problem in (KYC) Know Your Customer problem in Africa and to help insurance company ascertain trust.

Social Lender currently is facing the challenge of bad debt which is 2% .The most important barrier to entry is for Social Lender to reach a critical mass of both industry partners and end users. We are patent pending in some jurisdictions. However, we do not believe this is a strong enough barrier in 2019.

Bad debt: On our roadmap is to add additional online, mobile and social data sources, include machine learning and Improve our algorithm, all to reduce our already low bad debt of 2% to even lower.

Slow growth: We are currently raising fund to expand our staffing, implement and integrate more technology interfaces, expand Social Lender’s brand and marketing reach, and to expand into new markets and countries of operation.

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Social Lender Vision and mission is to Transform Trust into an Asset for Individual Empowerment and Financial Services and also to harness Social Reputation in building a Social Network for Trust, Credit and much more. with this in-view, we will like to expand our solution to Bangladesh to spread our market by; 

• Online & Social Media Advertisement and Engagements to sensitize the general public about the product. 

• Our marketing efforts are also supported by marketing efforts and advertisements by our partner financial institutions.

Limited liability company

9 people

Our team is the right mix of finance and technology to deliver this solution.  We saw a major need in our environment that we could solve. There is so much a simple access to formal credit - (like in the west with credit cards) can do for our society. We were uniquely positioned to solve the need.

Social Lender solves the problem of accessibility to Funds for the general African community. Social Lender leverages on the vast information available about any individual based on natural interactions on Social Networks and also the person entire network and digital fingerprint.

Social Lender has signed partnerships with 6 Financial Institutions in 2 Countries of Operations: Sterling Bank (Nigeria), Absa Barclays Bank (South Africa), iTrust (Nigeria), Unity Bank (Nigeria), Reliance Microfinance Bank (Nigeria) and FCMB Microfinance Bank (Nigeria) with a pipeline of 4 partners in 2 countries. 

Sterling Bank (Nigeria) - Sterling Bank Is offering microcredit to the Digital Natives.

iTrust (Nigeria)  - itrust is driving financial inclusion for Social Lender.

Unity Bank (Nigeria) - Unity bank is providing loans to the  Northern part of Nigeria.

FCMB Microfinance Bank (Nigeria) - FCMB Microfinance Bank is providing loans to the Southen part of Nigeria.

We run a B2B2C model which is partnership driven. With more partners being on-boarded our customer segmentation grows exponentially. our partners are defined to be financial institutions

Social Lender charges a licensing fee per annum to each financial partner

-Profit Sharing with Financial Institutions

-Transaction Fee for Pay with Social Lender

We are applying to the Tiger Challenge for Social Lender:

- Better Exposure.

- Networking with Industry Leaders and also other Start-ups.

- Funding Opportunity (We are raising $1million for growth in Nigeria, Ghana and some other countries in West Africa)

-Partnership

- Positioning Social Lender for the next stage of growth

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Financial Institutions

Investors

Experienced Mentors