SC Ventures partners with Yabx to expand access to financial services in Africa

SC Ventures, the innovation, fintech investment and ventures arm of Standard Chartered, announced it has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Yabx, a company incubated by Comviva and part of the Mahindra Group, to address a deep need for responsible consumer finance in Africa.

Jiten Arora, Member, SC Ventures: "We are excited at the prospect of using a data-driven, technology-enabled partnership model to serve the underbanked through purpose-driven lending in Africa, a continent for which we have a deep understanding and a strong commitment."

Africa has more than 700 million mobile wallets and around 450 million bank accounts, but access to formal credit remains severely limited due to poor credit infrastructure and the slowly evolving risk appetite of financial services players, especially of traditional banks. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digitalization in the financial sector and created a fertile environment for new and revolutionary products to be brought to market. The partnership between SC Ventures and Yabx is leveraging this to create unique, Africa-specific products that will increase access to credit for underbanked people across Africa.

Agile, future-proof technology and data analytics combined with a deep understanding of banks will lower the cost of delivering innovative credit products, thereby expanding inclusion into underserved segments in Africa where they are needed most. Due to the scale and complexity of the opportunity, SC Ventures and Yabx took a collaborative approach to jointly tackle the challenge.

Loans will be offered to clients for specific purposes such as education and skills development, using an innovative data-driven scoring and analytics engine built on extensive experience from African markets. These loan products will initially be launched in Uganda and later expanded to other countries in Africa.

Manoranjan Mohapatra, CEO,Comviva: "Yabx has experienced exponential growth over a year and we will continue to invest in its mission to serve millions of consumers and MSMEs in emerging markets that have limited traditional sources of finance available to them."

Rajat Dayal, CEO, Yabx: "We have a lot of synergy with SC Ventures in Africa and together we are uniquely positioned to create a seamless integrated finance experience. This partnership further fills the gaps in today's market, driving digital innovations and bringing significant benefits to the poor in Africa.''

www.scventures.io
www.yabx.co