Vietnamese startup scores series A to give people easy access to loans

Photo credit: Jerick Parrone.

Banks have historically handled most consumer and business lending. But since they take a very black or white approach to loan applications, a lot of borrowers – with bad or no credit history – get denied. The process also takes a long time. That’s why people turn to non-traditional avenues like peer-to-peer lending platforms. One such platform operating out of Vietnam is Tima, which has secured a “seven-digit USD” funding round from an unnamed Singaporean fund.

Tima uses algorithms that pull people’s credit scores and analyze data from their social media accounts to determine their creditworthiness, then matches them with lenders.

Tima charges a fee for every successful transaction. It now has over 960 lenders on its platform, which has seen more than 2 million transactions since it was created in July last year. “Cumulative lending money” from lenders on Tima is pegged at around US$115 million, the company claims. It didn’t say clearly if the amount has been extended as loans to users.

We’ve contacted the company for more information on its operations, how it exactly works, its financials, and the funding and we’ll update this piece when we hear back.