PITEH - PROVIDING FINANCIAL IDENTITIES TO THOSE WITHOUT CREDIT SCORES

In the face of increasing competition on the microfinance market and increased
operational risk, it is becoming increasingly important for a Microfinance Institution (MFI) to
be able to leverage less traditional consumer data to improve the efficiency of its lending
models. Many households in developing countries lack formal financial histories, making it
difficult for firms to extend credit, and for potential borrowers to receive it. However, many of
these households have mobile phones, which generate rich data about behaviour. Within this
project, a mobile lending application named PITEH is being developed to provide easy access
to microfinance ranging from RM500 – RM5,000 particularly the one living in rural areas, has
access to microfinance. This project also focuses on finding a low cost method to predict
repayment of credit using mobile phone metadata, which are already being collected by mobile
phones in order to validate the applicant's creditworthiness.