fintech Story wants to reach more unbanked population with a credit card. In just over two years of operation, it has 1.2 million users, and the goal for 2022 is to exceed two million, as long as economic conditions allow it.
Marlene Garayzar, co-founder of Storyexplains that the amounts of credit they grant range from 1,000 to 10,000 pesos, with the possibility of increasing the loan every three months, depending on the behavior of the client.
“This year we planned to have the same amount, that is, to double it, that is what we have planned for this year. We have to see if we maintain the plan as we had it, for what is coming in the following months, the whole issue of the economic recession and others, ”he says.
He adds: “We are now doing our numbers on where we are going to take growth, if it is the initial plan that was to reach two million or if we have to pause a little.”
In an interview, he specified that his product is 100% focused on the unbanked population, without a credit history, and therefore does not have access to formal financial products or services.
“I also have clients who have their credit history affected. We help them by giving them access to the card so they can rebuild their history. We give them the card and their score improves and they begin to have access to banks again, ”he says.
good payers
Story It was launched practically a couple of months before the Covid-19 pandemic started. Given this, Marlene Garayzar comments that at the beginning of the contingency, the approval of the cards had to be slowed down a bit. However, she says that users continued to pay, because they realized that the product solves their day-to-day life, even more so now that the option to pay for some public services such as electricity and water has been added to the platform.
In addition to this, he says, the fintech has a very robust risk team. “You could think that our segment is riskier and that they stop paying. The reality is that they take care of the product, they take care of access because no one else can lend them (…) I think that’s why they are taking care of the product, because it is solving part of their lives for them.”
They have raised 250 million dollars
The co-founder of Story comments that the fintech Last year, it raised close to 200 million dollars of capital, between rounds and credit, apart from another 50 million that they already had.
He highlights that startups in the fintech ecosystem must have a lot of financial discipline and even more so at this time, when the capital market is expensive and scarce. “We have to prove to be a profitable company to be able to raise rounds, it’s not just about growing,” he points out.
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