Fintech start-up rides AI surge to bring ‘inclusive’ finance to underbanked markets

A start-up is trying to catch the artificial intelligence (AI) surge to bring financial services to the underbanked population in developing markets. Meet Surfin-Meta, a Singapore-based fintech company that is making waves – and money – with its inclusive vision of financial empowerment.

The firm, with services spanning lending, credit cards, payment remittance and wealth management, mainly targets young individuals between 23 and 30 years old who have never had financial access before. It has more than 50 million registered users across nine markets.

Surfin uses AI to generate an initial credit score for users to kick-start their financial journey, based on their internet behaviour and activity, according to Yanan Wu, the founder, chairman and CEO.

“Like our name Surfin suggests, we want to ride on the technology wave to bring down the barrier of equal financial access to a wider population,” Wu said in an interview in Hong Kong. “We want to focus on the emerging markets’ fast income growth, consumer growth and emerging middle class for the coming decade.”

Surfin mainly uses social channels such as Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok for user acquisition, Wu said. Internet activities on the user’s mobile device, such as social networks and search history, help the company build a user profile that it uses to produce the credit score.

Since its launch in 2017, Surfin has expanded to nine markets including Indonesia, the Philippines, India and Mexico.

Accumulated transaction volume for the last six years has surpassed US$2.5 billion, and the company has been profitable since 2021 while delivering 50 to 60 per cent revenue growth, Wu said. Surfin generated more than US$170 million in revenue and US$20 million in net profit last year, and it expects to double its revenue this year, he said.