Filipinos will soon be able to avail of alternative secured financing using online loans marketplace and digital lending platform Lendr. This is thanks to a recent agreement forged between digital pawnshop startup PawnHero and FINTQ, the financial technology arm of PLDT and Smart’s Voyager Innovations.
At the moment, FINTQ’s Lendr already offers digital loan products from bank and financial institution partners. Through this agreement, the PawnHero will be the first digital pawnshop in the Lendr marketplace.
With PawnHero, customers no longer need to brick-and-mortar pawnshops to avail of alternative secured financing. All they have to is accomplish the forms and follow the instructions online using their mobile phones. Being the first online pawnshop in Asia, PawnHero is also registered with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
Thanks to this collaboration, PawnHero can further expand its reach while also providing Lendr users with alternative financing options apart from loans.
“We’re committed to provide our customers with help for those who need it most, at the most convenient financing means possible. With this partnership with Lendr, more Filipinos can discover that they can choose to avail of our digital pawnshop service for their quick cash needs and at the same time, enjoy the more affordable interest rates that we offer.” – David Margendorff, PawnHero Chairman and Founder.
“Pawnshops are ubiquitous among Filipinos as a source of accessible, fast secured short term credit.PawnHero has led innovations in this space by fully going digital and we’re excited to see them as part of the Lendr marketplace.” – Lito Villanueva, Managing Director at FINTQ. Â
With PawnHero being its most recent partner, Lendr now has the most extensive digital lending footprint covering 100% of 81 provinces, 90% of 145 cities and 15% of 1,490 municipalities. Statistics show that approximately 23% of borrowers on Lendr are from low-income areas.
Since its launch in 2015, Lendr has disbursed over PhP23 billion in loans to more than 200,000 clients, with registered annual growth rates of 50% and 33% in terms of loans released, and the number of borrowers respectively.
Emman has been writing technical and feature articles since 2010. Prior to this, he became one of the instructors at Asia Pacific College in 2008, and eventually landed a job as Business Analyst and Technical Writer at Integrated Open Source Solutions for almost 3 years.
