One year of the MCIB

The Mauritius Credit Information Bureau (MCIB) is a repository of credit information on all credit facilities of borrowers and guarantors.

Following the obtention of the Peer-to-Peer Lending License from the Financial Services Commission in April 2021, we became an MCIB participant in January 2022 thereby gaining access to our borrowers’ credit reports. From there on, all projects financed on our platform had their credit reports screened and analysed. We also report systematically the credit exposures of our borrowers to MCIB.

As of the 31^st of January 2023, Fundkiss received 4,347 applications and we financed 303 projects which were approved by our Credit Committee, leading to a conversion rate of 6.97%.

The credit process is spread into 4 levels. The minimum criterion for a business is to have at least 2 years of operations to apply for a loan. The credit team then analyses the credit requests, including the MCIB verification to establish the repayment capacity and pattern of the applicant. Our Head of Credit reviews the file and make the necessary amendments prior to sending the file to the Credit Committee members for approval. Only when credit requests are approved by the Credit Committee are projects published on our platform.

Our default rate as of the 31^st January 2023 stood at 5.1%, but it is worth noting that most of the default cases arose with projects that were financed prior to us becoming a participant in the MCIB.

Let’s dig into this KPI and find out more about it.

Projects financed since we became a participant in the MCIB account for 1.17% of the default rate which clearly highlights that the MCIB reports of borrowers are key in the credit assessment. Those with a high exposure and/or a high level of arrears are declined by our credit team at the initial assessment level itself.

We financed 106 projects for a total loan production of MUR 120,725,000 since January 2022. As the MCIB is also an excellent recovery tool, we not only obtain the credit reports of our applicants but also report all the arrears of borrowers. This can prevent those with bad track repayments at Fundkiss from obtaining another facility at other financial institutions without clearing their arrears.

Only 9.5% of the value of the loan portfolio is outstanding from the pre-MCIB era and lenders have been repaid MUR 135,376,362 with MUR 16,685,798 as interest.

197 projects were financed in the pre-MCIB era for a total loan production of MUR 103,978,500, out of which 94 have been fully repaid.

We financed 106 projects since becoming a participant of the MCIB and 7 of them have been fully repaid so far.

Our portfolio’s health keeps improving, and we have strengthened our recovery process by collaborating with a firm specialised in debt collection. We have seen results from this collaboration as our default rate gradually decreased since then. Some of the defaulting borrowers are now in the legal recovery process. In this case, we handle the judicial procedures, the external recovery agency, and external partners (attorneys, etc). Judicial procedures are usually long processes, and the recovery updates might become less frequent during that period.

We do unsecured lending and do not take collateral, but since February 2023 we have started to take personal guarantees from Directors, as additional comfort. We continue to strive to make our portfolio healthier. We have been granted direct access to MCIB since January 2023 which enables us to make our process fast and simple.