Recently Lendermarket welcomed a new loan originator, CrediFace, to the platform. Today we invite you to dive deep into the CrediFace world and learn about the business directly from company CEO, Ernesto. Feel free to leave your questions to Ernesto in the comments section. Hope you enjoy reading!
Hello Ernesto, welcome to the Lendermarket Stars series. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and what your day looks like at CrediFace?
Hi Laura and everyone. I am the founder and CEO of CrediFace since 6 years ago, previously I worked for 25 years in Peruvian Banks mainly in Risk areas, so I know quite well the behavior of our clients and how to make an evaluation oriented to have a healthy Portfolio. Additionally, it is essential that our staff has previous financial experience before being able to work with us.
CrediFace has been growing with the main objective of “To have sustained growth with a healthy portfolio”, this has allowed us to overcome the crisis of 2018, Covid 2020 and always with growth. Our delinquency ratios are quite low because we are very prudent in approving loans.
Apart from you, who else is leading the business?
Today we have 23 employees and almost half is dedicated to Collection with Lady Medina who has extensive experience, the area of Credits in charge of Mr Walter Risco, in IT we have Mr Jhon Gamarra, Administration and HR with Yahaira Reyes and Marketing with Silvinha Paucar, that is the team behind CrediFace.
Could you tell us more about CrediFace? What are your vision, mission and values?
In CrediFace our mission is to be a financial alternative for people who cannot access credits in the Financial System, or who are underbanked (poorly served by banks), we believe that there is a long way to go because in Peru that segment is very broad.
What was the idea behind funding CrediFace and how are you making a difference in Peru?
The funding of CrediFace has always been with the intention of expanding our level of placements and being able to serve more clients with these financing needs. The main difference is the speed and practicality of obtaining a loan only in minutes compared to traditional banks which can take several days.
What type of investments do you offer at Lendermaket? All loans are covered by a Buyback guarantee, what effect does it have on investors’ risk?
We offer to publish Consumer credits of terms from 3 to 24 months, always all covered by BuyBack at day 61 of delay. The Investor can feel calm due to the fact that we previously selected the best credits to be published so that we can ensure adequate behaviour of the portfolio.
What is the reason investors should invest in CrediFace-issued loans?
The Investor when investing in CrediFace will be able to count on a select group of credits which guarantee a fluid return of interest with good portfolio quality. Additionally, have the peace of mind that CrediFace is a company that has been operating in Peru for more than 6 years without having financial problems.
What are your thoughts on funding your business through a marketplace? What are the benefits of listing your loans on Lendermarket?
This type of funding through Marketplaces is ideal for our type of business since it fits perfectly with the repayment of Interest. Previously we were with Investment Funds that are not suitable for our line of business, and many times one must pay before having invested the funds, generating a mismatch.
Your approval ratio is of 8% approximately, can you elaborate on the evaluation process that is followed and how this affects your low default ratio of approximately 10%?
CrediFace works with systems built by ourselves, which allowed us to adapt it to our market directly. So we have an algorithm that constantly learns from customers, improving and fine-tuning their performance. Our Approval process is very selective and we do not approve of any client who requests us, we are very strict in that. It is for that reason that our growth is gradual but quite solid. Our algorithm allows you to define in seconds the 95% of the clients that are presented, allowing you to approve clients immediately. Then that 5% goes through a manual review where they end up approving 2% approx (8% approx in total).
You have ambitious plans for growth in the next few years, what are the steps CrediFace will follow in the upcoming future in order to meet its goals?
Yes, we are very happy because within a few months we will be starting our expansion to Mexico which will be our first country where we would be expanding creating the CrediOne brand for which we hope to grow prudently as we do in Peru.
We know you are an investor yourself, what advice would you give retail investors in 2023?
The best advice I can give you is to mitigate the risks well knowing the company, seniority and the record (in our case we supérate crises without problems).
The Investor must be calm investing in Lendermarket since it makes a good selection of Originators committed to the Buyback of credits, which allows for eliminating possible losses.