Experian backs India-based mobile marketing firm Vserv

Data and analytics company Experian announced that it has made a strategic investment in Vserv, an Indian data platform for mobile marketing.

Experian India country head and managing director Sathya Kalyanasundaram (left) and Vserv co-founder and CEO Dippak Khurana / Photo credit: Experian

The investment, which is Experian’s seventh in Asia Pacific over the last two years, is in line with its goal to boost financial inclusion through providing a frictionless digital onboarding experience for customers, according to a statement.

Financial details of the investment were not disclosed.

According to Experian, more than 45% of India’s adult population have no access to credit. With the partnership, the banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) sector will be able to more effectively reach specific customers and provide access to financial products.

“Vserv’s mobile marketing platform and access to authentic telco datasets through their unique data management platform ensure immediate synergies to our core product propositions,” said Experian India country head and managing director Sathya Kalyanasundaram.

The partnership will also help Experian, which has over 940 million unique loans in India, expand scoring to new-to-credit customers, the exec added.

Vserv co-founder and CEO Dippak Khurana said that the company will now focus on developing and rolling out smart products for the BFSI sector as a key business partner. “Indian consumers have a huge appetite to adopt friction-free digital sign-ups for financial products. Vserv and Experian will work closely with the BFSI sector to enable it,” he added.

In addition to Vserv, Experian has also backed Grab and personal finance platform CompareAsiaGroup this year. In 2018, it participated in investment rounds for online financial services marketplaces CekAja and eCompareMo, as well as Malaysian fintech firm Jirnexu.