Asia Blockchain Review recently spoke to Jared Lim, Founder of Finology, a Malaysian Fintech company driving change in the banking, property, and insurance industries and the company behind established brands Loanstreet and Loanplus. Jared talked about the fintech landscape in Malaysia, winning the Asia Pacific ICT Awards 2018, helping consumers gain access to financial services, and the company’s upcoming projects.

Asia Blockchain Review: Can you tell us about the mission of Finology and its long-term goals?

Jared Lim: Most consumers in ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) are either under-insured or lacking in financial literacy. We aim to tackle those problems by accelerating the growth of digital ecosystems in the banking and insurance industry. The process of obtaining loans and insurance products should be fast and easily accessible. We do this through Loanstreet, Loanplus, and our digital solutions for the B2B (business-to-business) market.

ABR: How is Finology bridging the gap for different segments of the market with your technology? 

JL: We provide technology solutions for instant approval decision and underwriting for both credit and insurance. We can provide it as a service, like Loanstreet — where consumers can make loan comparisons, check their loan eligibility, and get instant insurance quotes, including transactions. 

Additionally, we can also act as a technology vendor so that businesses can get pre-approval for loans or insurance policies using our technology. For instance, we’ve partnered up with IQI, a leading real estate firm in Malaysia, to qualify property buyers within minutes and reduce booking cancellation rates by using our proprietary credit assessment technology.

In short, we act as an enabler.

ABR: Can you tell us more about Loanstreet? How is it making financial services more accessible to consumers?

JL: Loanstreet aims to be a one-stop platform for financial products i.e. loans, credit cards, insurance comparisons, and applications. For example, we’ve recently launched a platform within the website to allow users to renew their motorcycle insurance and road tax online. This was not possible before, and we’re the first to offer this service in the market.

Besides that, we’ve also added additional tools like a home loan eligibility checker, a car & personal loan settlement calculator, and an RPGT (Real Property Gains Tax) calculator, just to name a few, to help consumers make a well-informed, financial decision.

ABR: How is Loanplus helping your clients in the property and automotive sector?

JL: With Loansplus’s technology, property and automotive players (vendors) are able to screen customers by getting an instant loan pre-approval from banks. What makes it even better is that the technology can be used anywhere. There are property agents and developers’ salespeople on the ground using the Loanstreet mobile app seamlessly. This has helped businesses to significantly reduce lead times while increasing sales conversion. 

Not only that — it also helps flag potential bad paymasters to the vendors before the customers even apply for a loan. This means that they can focus on buyers who can get their loans approved.

ABR: What services does Fincon provide and can you tell us about some of your ongoing projects? 

JL: Fincon provides technology consulting services and enterprise solutions for the banking and insurance sectors across Asia. In the banking sector, we help banks and lenders to digitize their loan sales and approval process, enabling instant approvals. As for our insurance enterprise solution, we enable insurers to digitally deploy and sell products through any digital channel at a much faster pace (shortening time-to-market by 90%) compared to traditional tech players.

ABR: Can you tell us about winning the Asia Pacific ICT Awards 2018? How did your company stand out from others?

JL: We were the winners of the Asia Pacific ICT Alliance Awards (APICTA Awards) 2018 for the Consumer Banking, Finance, and Insurance category. We believe that Loanplus stood out as a unique product that could revolutionize the loans industry. The solution benefits all players within the loan application process i.e. customers, property developers, sales agents, and bankers. 

ABR: What other projects and developments can we expect to see from Finology in 2019-2020? 

JL: You can look forward to more collaboration from us with other players/channels in the financial sector. As an ‘enabler’, we look to provide tech solutions for the rapid deployment of products to the market. 

The year 2020 is all about rapid enablement and multiplying our impact in the industries we are currently serving. While we continue to increase the adoption of our technologies in Malaysia, we will be launching our technologies in Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand.

ABR: How is the fintech landscape in Malaysia? What other areas of development do you expect to see in the near future? 

JL: Fintech is a very wide scope. And in Malaysia, we can definitely see it is growing rapidly, especially in the digital payment segment, which is aligned with the Central Bank of Malaysia’s objective in creating a cashless society. According to The Edge Markets, the transaction value per capita increased from RM550,703 in 2016 to RM668,785 in 2018.

In the future, what we hope to see is the credit space (compliance and lending segment) becoming more open with fintech solutions. We believe that there is demand from consumers to see more innovations from their financial institutions to deliver at a quicker pace.