Chinese fintech firm IceKredit gears up for SEA expansion

Photo credit: IceKredit

IceKredit, a Chinese AI-focused credit risk and management company, plans to export its AI-powered products and solutions to financial institutions in Southeast Asia.

“Southeast Asia, especially the financial sector, has a very similar pathway with its early stage in China,” Lingyun Gu, founder and CEO of IceKredit, tells Tech in Asia in an interview. “There’s a great demand for AI-based financial risk management products.”

Founded in 2015, IceKredit helps lenders to establish an automated end-to-end digital lending process – from application pre-screening to collections – by providing risk mitigation products and services.

In the past two years, the firm has raised over US$58 million in series C funding, a large part of which will be used for its Southeast Asian expansion, the company says.

Gu shares that IceKredit currently counts OCBC, SCB, and HomeCredit as some of its customers in the region, offering products such as risk scoring, software platform, and AI algorithm consulting. Southeast Asia accounted for 10% of the company’s annual revenue in 2022 but that figure could reach 30% by 2025.

“The competition in SEA is intensive due to the recent landscape change in China and Hong Kong,” he adds. “Although the population size in total is lucrative, the real obstacle is different cultures and legislation systems country by country.”

Gu, however, believes that Chinese tech companies like IceKredit can have a head start after testing their business models and technologies in their home market.

The fintech firm doesn’t have a timeline to go public but considers Shanghai and Hong Kong as potential destinations.

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