Visa Partners with Local “Open Finance” Startup to Expand Access to Financial Services

Startups open finance Brick announced a partnership with Visa, the world leader in digital payments, to give lending institutions access to alternative sources of data and scores from debit and credit card transactions from the Visa network. This collaboration aims to help expand access to finance in Indonesia.

In the tangible form of this partnership, it allows financial service providers to extract alternative data from the end user's aggregate card transactions, with the user's consent, for credit risk related assessments. This additional insight helps Brick's partners and clients make better credit decisions, and consumers can access lines of credit that they may not have been able to before.

Brick Founder and CEO Gavin Tan said it recognized the need for a more comprehensive data set for financial service providers to truly understand their customers. "Partnering with Visa, we believe that we can enable financial institutions to expand their financial access," he said in an official statement.

He believes the creation of financial inclusion means paving the way for every individual and business to have financial freedom through various financial services. This aspect has an important role in meeting all individual needs, such as savings, payments, credit, and insurance that can be carried out effectively and sustainably.

Financial inclusion also makes it easier to access various financial services that are safe, comfortable, and adequate for vulnerable groups, such as low-income people, living in areas not covered by financial services, and others.

According to the Statista report, as of June 2021, the number of credit cards in Indonesia was 16,71 million and debit cards were 226,4 million. This figure shows a large gap in financial inclusion as most debit card holders do not have access to credit. This impact ultimately affects the inhibition of national economic growth.

Brick has built an infrastructure that allows end users to securely share data with fintech applications. It is claimed that Brick has served more than 50 clients in Indonesia, some of which are engaged in lenders, digital banks, and personal finance management.

The API solution has been expanded, in addition to the Brick Data API, the company now offers Brick Verification and Brick Payments. This allows the Brick API suite to cover deeper use cases and allows developers to launch world-class products with a single API integration. For example, user journey end-to-end from onboarding, underwriting and disbursing for users who want to take out loans, can now be automated with Brick Verification, Brick Data, and Brick Payments.

Finantier is also partnered with Visa

In the near future, Brick's closest competitor, Finantier, also announced a similar partnership with Visa. At the beginning of this month, Finantier strategically partnered with Visa to combine capabilities in developing innovative new Open Finance products, with a focus on revenue prediction, approval management and alternative credit scoring.

Finantier solutions: Account Aggregation, Credit Scoring, and Verification enable financial freedom by leaving ownership of data in the hands of consumers. By building technical infrastructure for financial freedom, single integration of Finantier, API developer-friendly powering the next generation of digital and financial services through enhanced data portability and interoperability.

By co-developing products open finance In the new year, the two companies will provide businesses across Asia Pacific with new tools to enhance and optimize existing operations, such as improving due diligence and underwriting processes. In addition, will explore innovative ways to combine platforms open finance Finantier with an alternative source of data from Visa to provide increased value for businesses and consumers.

Finantier and Visa will launch jointly developed products in all markets in Asia Pacific, with an initial focus on Indonesia and the Philippines.

Finantier Co-founder and CEO Diego Rojas said, "This strategic partnership is a major milestone for the company, not only a strong validation, but also a catalyst for ecosystem development. open finance throughout Asia Pacific. “Finantier is passionate about building products and services that deliver value to businesses and end users, and we are delighted to have found a like-minded partner at Visa,” he said.