Robocash boss underlines group’s regional resilience
Robocash Group chief executive Natalya Ischenko has described how the firm has successfully mitigated risk in volatile economies such as Kazakhstan, the Philippines and Russia.
Ischenko said the alternative finance group’s portfolio currently has a default level of around 12 per cent on a group level, while the Philippines is a little higher at 13 per cent.
Speaking to Jakub Krejci from P2P Empire, an Estonian P2P lending comparison site, she said the lender also held up well in Kazakhstan despite the crisis in January.
She said loan rates decreased to a record low of nine per cent in May, but that it has focused on working with the existing client base, to help them recover and to pay the loans.
“We have instruments for this,” she added. “This helps to keep the business stable and resume growing rapidly when the situation stabilises.”
Read more: Robo.cash’s Sri Lanka loans perform well despite economic crisis
Asked about the default rates in Sri Lanka, Ischenko said the default ratio was 17 per cent, most of which (90 per cent) is recovered by Robocash Group and 10 per cent passed on to debt collection agencies.
The firm has restructured its loans in Sri Lanka and decreased the loan issuance to protect the performance of its loanbook in the region, while the political crisis is ongoing.
Likewise, in the Philippines, Ischenko said the product had been changed to make it more profitable. “It’s still lending but it is credit line, which is more convenient to the clients to repay”, she said.
Robocash Group has also developed banking software, which is now live in the Philippines and has expanded its product line just to increase client retention in the region, with instalment loans particularly popular.
“The group business in Asia is efficient enough to back the guarantees for investors, facing no financial risk connected with the conflict and our book is profitable and self-funding in most countries”, she said.
She added that this year, Kazakhstan and Philippines have generated “tremendous profits”.
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Turning to Russia, she said Zaymer, the group’s Russian lending business, is not part of the group guarantee and is focused on domestic lending. As such, she said it doesn’t present a risk to investors in other parts of the world.
She said the companies that do make up the group guarantee will contribute more than 70 per cent of profits in consolidated reporting.
Ischenko took over from former chief executive Sergey Sedov early last month. Sedov remains as chairman of the board.