Credit manager AsiaCollect picks up $4.5m funding
Singapore-based credit management services (CMS) provider AsiaCollect has raised $4.5 million to date after closing its recent investment round led by SIG Asia Investments.
Dymon Asia Ventures, the venture capital arm of Dymon Asia Capital, a Singapore-based alternative investment management firm, returned to co-invest in this round after investing $1 million in AsiaCollect’s pre-series A equity round in August last year.
AsiaCollect offers CMS outsourcing, CMS advisory services, debt purchasing, and Software-As-A-Service (SaaS).
The company says its proprietary technology automates a majority of debt collection processes, while minimising the need for field collection, “which has traditionally been associated with high reputational risk for lenders and a distressing experience for consumers”. (We can use our imaginations here.)
Tomasz Borowski, CEO and co-founder of AsiaCollect, says: “Investors view the debt collections business as a classic counter-cyclical play, which is becoming increasingly important as we move into what looks like the peak of this cycle.”
He explains that the firm has purchased its first portfolio from a large (unnamed) financial institution in Vietnam. It also has a data science team in Ukraine to support its ambitions.
AsiaCollect will use the new funds for client acquisition in its core markets, enhancements to its SaaS solution, expansion of its collections’ infrastructure and teams, and to continue purchasing non-performing loans (NPL) portfolios.
The company launched in 2016 and is currently managing over $40 million in assets of over ten financial institutions and digital lenders across Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
It estimates there will be over $45 billion of consumer NPLs generated in these markets in the next five years.
