Monday, January 17, 2022 / 04:52
PM / Release by Periculum / Header Image Credit: Periculum
Periculum helps its
banking and lending customers identify fraud risk, assess creditworthiness, and
analyze existing data
The availability of domestic credit is a key
requirement for consistent economic growth in developing countries. The
vitality of financial services such as banking, savings, debt and equity
financing, investment management, and point-of-sale lending is largely
dependent on the maturity of its domestic credit industry. Nigeria's domestic
credit market pales in comparison to similar countries of the same size. For
context, credit to the private sector in Nigeria is about 12 percent of GDP,
lower than South Africa's 129 percent and Malaysia's 134 percent. High ratios
of credit to the private sector in these countries have helped to ramp up real
sector growth, create innovative innovation possibilities for
technology-enabled businesses, accelerate financial development, ensure the
efficient functioning of the economy and guarantee the prosperity of the private
sector.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other
development partners including the Bank of Industry (BoI), the Bank of
Agriculture (BoA), among others have embarked on significant credit injections
to support the critical sectors of the economy, but the paucity of credit
assessment infrastructure ensures many potential borrowers are denied access to
loans, and when they do, they can be charged as much as triple the base
interest rate. This financial exclusion has significant outcomes for the real
sector as lack of access to credit can be a disincentive to entrepreneurship,
investment, and economic growth.
Canadian fintech startup and credit assessment
company, Periculum, has launched in Nigeria to tackle the challenge of domestic
credit to the underserved markets. Focused on improving financial inclusion in
emerging markets through automated credit assessment tools that close the
consumer credit gap and help financial institutions provide credit facilities
to the financially excluded while making smarter decisions, Periculum
officially launched its financial service product offerings at a media
interaction today.
Speaking at the launch, Michael Temitope Collins,
Periculum's founder and Chief Executive Officer, said "Africa needs
domestic credit to stimulate real economic growth. And this is not only
bank-to-business credit; it can also be digital lending for short-term credit
as well as "buy now, pay later" schemes. The absence of tech-enabled credit
assessment infrastructure has limited the quality and quantity of lending and
may be behind the risk premiums borrowers have to pay, and the harassment
practiced by predatory lenders in countries like Nigeria. Periculum will change
that. We are a top provider of data analytics and credit assessment services
targeted explicitly to underserved markets. We help our customers to reduce
their lengthy loan application processing times and loan default rates and
offer loans to the underbanked and unbanked consumers as well as micro, small
and medium-scale enterprises. With reliable, tech-enabled, credit assessment
services, financial institutions can increase lending to those that need
credit".
The company has also announced the appointment of a
Managing Director, Damilola Aluede, to accelerate its business in Nigeria.
Founded in 2019, Periculum helps its banking and
lending customers identify fraud risk, assess creditworthiness, and analyze
existing data. Periculum offers real-time decision-making, analysis, and credit
underwriting solutions to financial institutions including banks, non-banking
financial companies, and fintech companies. By providing information on the
financial worthiness of customers and automating the loan decision process,
Periculum's customers can gather and analyze borrower information and assign a
credit score faster, with real outcomes on financial inclusion in Nigeria and
other markets.
Periculum offers data aggregation APIs and platform
solutions that aggregate data from partners including open banking APIs and the
credit bureaus, to provide complete financial and data profiles of prospective
borrowers and third-party entities. Some of its clients include Fundii,
Lendaba, Sycamore, Golden Ox Partners, Vola Africa and Venero.
On its product roadmap and current services, Collins
added "We offer services that include Credit model development, SMS data
aggregation and analysis, financial data analysis, and other data analytic
solutions. We can help our customers with solutions such as fraud detection,
insights for lenders based on customer segmentation and customer lifecycle
value, insights to retailers and ATM operators, and several other
benefits".
The startup was accepted into Techstars in 2021 and is
among the 2021 Techstars Montreal AI cohort, as well as the Founder Institutes' Select Portfolio. In October 2021, Periculum raised a $620,000 pre-seed funding
round to help it expand its team, improve product development and scale its
operations in Nigeria and other markets. The company currently delivers
services to customers in Canada and Nigeria and plans to expand to Ghana,
Kenya, and Egypt before the end of 2022.
For many countries in Africa, there is still a
financial divide. By tackling the credit assessment challenge, Periculum can
build the financial infrastructure that helps in addressing the issue of access
to financial services and improves development outcomes for millions of people,
with better opportunities for businesses, financial institutions, and lenders.
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