NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

By Charlotte Tucker

Latvian fintech startup Jeff App has raised €150K to further evolve its “Tinder for loans” solution in the Vietnamese market, as well as expand to Indonesia later in 2020. A number of European business angels participated in the Jeff App pre-seed round, the very first company’s funding round to date.

Launched in Riga in the summer of 2019, Jeff is a loan brokerage solution that utilizes alternative data to boost financial inclusion and has its focus set on Southeast Asia. With just 30% of the population holding a bank account and even less people being included in credit bureaus according to World Bank data, there is a massive gap between Vietnamese in need of financing and banks, and lenders currently able to service them. And Vietnam is just one of the many nations in the region facing the challenge of financial inclusion.

The users are onboarded to the application via simple chat with Jeff bot, their new best friend for finding great loan offers. Progressing through the application, users are invited to connect data points from different sources to their Jeff App profile. The more data is provided, the higher level is reached, better assessment of a person can be carried out & in turn more loan offers are provided.

Photo courtesy of Seika.