Enabling Credit Access for Indonesia’s Small Business Owners
Micro, Small, and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) form the backbone of the Indonesian economy, contributing about 6 per cent of GDP and 97 per cent of total employment. Despite the sector’s importance, Indonesia has an estimated MSME credit gap of USD 166 billion.
Fairbanc, a fintech company with primary operations in Jakarta, partners with fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) distributors to allow unbanked or financially underserved MSME owners to make inventory purchases on a “Buy Now Pay Later” basis. The company enables this via its proprietary AI-powered credit scoring platform, which allows quick microcredit distribution to MSMEs.
Since its inception in 2019, Fairbanc has partnered with major FMCG firms including Unilever, L’Oréal, and Danone to help over 60,000 MSMEs, many of them women-owned businesses struggling amid the pandemic, grow their sales by 35 per cent.
ADB Ventures joined a fundraising round for Fairbanc in June 2021 to help contribute to financial inclusion and climate resilience in emerging Asia. Part of this funding will specifically support development of a product recommendation system to provide information alerts to MSEMs on in-demand products during climate events in addition to a business continuity program to build their capacity to be more resilient during such times including securing inventory, emergency lighting, and back-up suppliers.
Fairbanc will use the invested funds to create new distributor partnerships and strengthen its sales and marketing teams to reach more than 120,000 Indonesian MSME operators by 2025.
