Original Post by Tech in Asia
Indonesian fintech startup Dana Cita has expanded to the Philippines. It will launch in the country under a localized brand, Bukas – a word which can mean both “open” and “tomorrow” in the Filipino language.
It claims to have borrowers from over 150 educational institutions across 18 of Indonesia’s provinces.
Speaking on stage at Money 20/20 in Singapore today, co-founder Naga Tan said that the platform’s loan default rate is at around 6 percent. “As the portfolio grows, we expect that to number to decrease,” he added.
See: In Indonesia, student loans are ‘a major opportunity’ for fintech
Dana Cita was the third Indonesian startup to graduate from Y Combinator’s Silicon Valley accelerator program. In addition to investment from Y Combinator, it also raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from GE32 Capital – an early backer of Spotify and ride-hailing app 99, which was subsequently acquired by Didi Chuxing – in January 2018. In January this year, it reportedly raised funding from San Francisco-based Patamar Capital.
Ride-hailing and payments giant Go-Jek formed a strategic partnership with Dana Cita and two other P2P lenders – Aktivaku and Findaya – in September last year.
“Strong collaboration between financial services providers and technology companies can reach a wider range of people who have difficulty accessing financial services, such as unbanked communities,” Go-Jek president Andre Soelistyo said at the time, while confirming that the P2P lending partnerships would be separate from the company’s Go-Pay payments unit.