How fintech startup LendMN saves 30K salaried employees from loan sharks in Mongolia

For the common man, borrowing money from a public lender/bank in Asia is still a harrowing experience. While the emergence of fintech has transformed the banking industry, it is a matter of debate whether the fruits of this innovation have reached the common man. If you look at countries like India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc., banks still rely on traditional paper-based methods to process loan applications. This is not just time-consuming, but costly, too.

The east Asian country of Mongolia is no different.

“In Mongolia, lending is mostly a slow and time-consuming process, and the loan seeker is required to bring a bundle of documents to prove his/her identity, income, and employment status. Plus, there are human biases in issuing loans,” says Anar Chinbaatar, a fintech entrepreneur in the country. “Micro loan seekers are not spared from this inefficient process, either.”

But where there is a problem, there is always a solution. The more such problems exist, the more opportunities are available for the rise of fintech.

Chinbaatar and his startup LendMN are doing exactly this.

“LendMN is a smartphone-based instant collateral-free micro-lending service powered by artificial intelligence (AI). We use non-traditional data sources, along with traditional data, to identify the customers’ credit risk instantaneously and issues loan within less than five minutes of signing up,” claims Chinbaatar. “We offer 10 times faster, more convenient and cheaper micro-loans, compared to other competitors, which follow mostly traditional business models.”

A subsidiary of Singapore-registered fintech firm AND Global, LendMN was started by a group of mathematicians, finance experts, and tech entrepreneurs  — who have previously founded and exited multiple startups.