Fintech Startup CreditVidya Alledgedly Spied on Users' Data via Other Apps

Hyderabad-based financial technology startup, CreditVidya, has had reportedly used third party apps like Sai Baba stories and one that streamed Ilaiyaraaja songs, to fetch sensitive user data including GPS locations and also spied over business SMSes from e-commerce sites and banks to monitor spending activity, personal contacts, and much more.

The report, by Gopal Sathe, Huffington Post, said that CreditVidya fetched "the data, scooped up from users, was used to power CreditVidya’s self-learning algorithms that help lending companies determine the credit-worthiness of loan applicants."

CreditVidya, which counts Matrix Partners and Kalaari Capital among its investors, has ran Software Development Kit (SDKs), used to develop mobile apps, for several months in 2017 until a new version of Google’s Android operating system made it harder to scrape such data."

In other words the fintech startup stopped the alleged snooping only when Google made it harder for Creditvidya to sustain the scam any longer.

Developed by a third party app developer Winjit Technologies (a Nashik, Maharashtra based firm), once these apps are installed users would have been asked for access permissions that are increasingly common and intrusive, but would have had no idea that their personal data was being scraped and sold further in a manner that could affect their credit-worthiness.

“Even though there might not be proper notice / informed consent, at least it’s understandable that lending apps that user uses is downloaded consciously and some might have knowledge on the fact that app,” said Srikanth L, who is a contributor to Cashless Consumer, that tracks the payment tech industry in India and provide consumer perspectives, voice concerns.

The Creditvidya SDK wa found in a Sai Baba app, Ilaiyaraaja Hits app and other music apps of popular record labels with its SDK where user is clueless about this background data collection.



Thus a user could consent to an app collecting data without knowing how such data would be used.

In a statement to Huffington, Srikanth further said, “the data from unsuspecting users as part of the huge database it uses to generate the trust score, but there is opaqueness about where this data comes from and how many data brokers were engaged in trading personal data with companies like CreditVidya.”

Mumbai Based CreditVidya Secures $5 Mn From Matrix Partners

B2B financial data technology platform CreditVidya has raised $5-million (Rs 32-crore) in Series-B round of funding led by Matrix Partners. The current round of funding also saw participation from existing investor Kalaari Capital. Post this round, the total capital raised by CreditVidya touches about $7 million.

The company plans to use freshly infused funds to add a wide range of fraud and verification services to its existing big data underwriting platform. Not only this, to enable better implementation of the AI-based algorithms, the company is looking to scale up its employee base from 74 to 100 over the next 6-9 months.

Commenting on the development, Vikram Vaidyanathan, MD at Matrix Partners said, “Every bank and NBFC has now embraced technology-based sourcing and underwriting to help bridge the credit gap for first-time borrowers. We believe in CreditVidya's approach to enabling alternate data-based credit underwriting for this lending ecosystem. Their ability to find unique insights by acquiring and processing complex da ta while giving very simple tech solutions sets them apart.”

Founded in 2013 by Abhishek Agarwal and Rajiv Raj, CreditVidya is harnessing the power of big data and advance machine learning techniques to re-imagine, recalibrate and re-build credit scoring. Together, Agarwal and Raj bring a wealth of expertise from their backgrounds in credit risk management, data analytics, nd retail lending. The company’s clients includes banks and nonbanking financial institutions such as Fullerton India, Bajaj Finserv, IDFC Bank, Tata Capital and Shriram Housing Finance. It has also garnered interest from other verticals such as insurance companies, e-commerce companies and e-wallets.

Being a financial technology startup headquartered in Mumba, CreditVidya’s technology platform uses non-traditional data sources to provide credit scores to hundreds of millions of Indian customers.  The technology platform helps lenders accurately assess risk of new-to-credit and thin file customers.  Lenders benefit from increased approval rates, lower cost of underwriting and more effective product cross-selling and upselling.

Abhishek Agarwal, Co-founder, CreditVidya, said “By leveraging the India stack, we have managed to reduce the cost of underwriting for a small ticket loan by over 50% and reduced the turnaround time for loan disbursal from several days to under 30 minutes. Most of the work we have done so far is in unsecured products such as two wheeler loans, personal loans and consumer durable loans.”

Earlier in December 2016, the technology startup has partnered with Fullerton India to offer alternative data-based authentication and verification services. In June 2016, the company has raised $2 million in Series A funding from Kalaari Capital. Prior to this, CreditVidya has received angel funding from Siddharth Parekh from Paragon Partners and Silicon Valley-based angel investor Munish Mehta.  

CreditVidya Partners with Fullerton India to Offer Data-Based Authentication and Verification Services

Financial technology startup CreditVidya has partnered with Fullerton India to offer alternative data-based authentication and verification services, which will significantly improve the efficiency of loan processing.

Commenting on the announcement, Anand Natarajan, Head - Strategy & Business Execution, Fullerton India said, “An increasingly digitalized ecosystem is transforming the way a consumer conducts his financial and non-financial transactions, and interacts with the environment. Evolving demography and consumer needs require us, as responsible lenders, to adapt our own processes to incorporate the changing landscape in our validation processes and to reduce transaction friction. To this end, we have leveraged CreditVidya’s expertise in alternate data analytics to comprehensively digitize the customer validation processes. This has allowed us to eliminate physical intervention, thereby improving efficiency and turnaround time, delivering a markedly better customer experience.”

CreditVidya’s E-mail Fraud Application Programming Interface (API) uses approximately 80 email-related inferences to confirm employment details and analyse risks associated with potential borrowers. The platform runs automated assessments of the details submitted, and confirms the legitimacy of the applications, by combining data from eight discrete sources. This will help improve Fullerton’s India’s customer experience by eliminating manual verifications. Any inconsistency in the data is highlighted through a customized rule engine, allowing the lender to safely process more loan applications at a far lower cost.

Field Investigation (FI) Digital is another powerful alternative data-based tool that will enable Fullerton India to determine the veracity of the details submitted by an applicant. Traditionally, lenders use field verification checks to establish the ease of contacting a prospective borrower. This leads to a delay of several days in loan disbursal, until the report from the field agent is processed. CreditVidya’s technology eliminates this manual effort and consequently, the loan can be disbursed on the same day itself. Its Artificial Intelligence-based profiling algorithm verifies the details submitted in the loan application, including but not limited to, names, date(s) of birth and addresses, using various transactional and behavioural data. The Stability Score thus generated, allows Fullerton to fast track the application process, substantially reducing the time and cost of underwriting.

Commenting on the announcement, Abhishek Agarwal, Co-Founder and CEO, CreditVidya said, “Our vast expertise in alternate data - based analytics has allowed us to build products that instantly verify customers and detect fraud with a high degree of accuracy. This, in turn, increases operational efficiencies and reduces the turnaround time for a lender. We are thrilled to partner with Fullerton India, who truly believe in the power of technology to enhance the loan application process. We look forward to helping them continuously increase their efficiency and profitability and improving the experience for their customers.”

The Email Fraud API and FI Digital are a part of the ‘CreditVidya Grid’, a suite of tools that harness the power of big data and machine learning algorithms to verify loan applicant details instantly and accurately, to minimize exposure to fraud, so that the lenders can safely accept more customers.

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Kalaari Capital Invests $2M in Financial Technology Startup CreditVidya

CreditVidya, a financial technology startup that harnesses the power of non-traditional data to provide credit scores to millions of unscored Indians, has raised $2 million in Series A funding from Kalaari Capital. The investment will support CreditVidya’s plans to continuously advance their technology platform and launch additional products that help lenders approve more customers, minimize fraud rates and accelerate verification processes of potential customers.

Speaking about the investment, Abhishek Agarwal, Co-founder and CEO of CreditVidya said, “Non-traditional internet and mobile data sources provide a rich source of social, behavioural and transactional data which when combined with advanced analytics is fuelling a new wave of credit risk assessment. Our big data platform leverages over 10,000+ such unique digital data points to assess the creditworthiness of a potential borrower. We work very closely with our lending partners to develop customized scorecards for their product offering so that they can approve more creditworthy customers. The goal to drive financial inclusion by enabling access to credit through our technology platform is what motivates us!”

“Currently, credit bureaus rely heavily on traditional data streams such as details of repayment of loans and credit cards to generate credit scores. India’s demographic profile consists primarily of people without a credit history. CreditVidya’s solutions enable lenders to increase profitability by more accurately assessing the credit risk of these new-to-credit customers. We are thrilled to benefit from Kalaari’s expertise in scaling technology businesses to bring fair and transparent credit to millions of Indians.”  added, Rajiv Raj, Co-founder and Director of the firm.

Together, Abhishek and Rajiv bring a wealth of expertise from their backgrounds in credit risk management, data analytics and retail lending. The company’s current clientele includes banks and non-banking financial institutions such as Fullerton India, Bajaj Finserv, IDFC Bank, Tata Capital and Shriram Housing Finance. It has also garnered interest from other verticals such as insurance companies, e-commerce companies and e-wallets.

According to Bala Srinivasa, ‎Partner at Kalaari Capital, “Credit scoring is a major bottleneck in India inhibiting social and economic growth.  Credit Vidya has built unique technology that enables lenders to assess credit risk of 800M+ Indians not covered by traditional credit scoring.  We are excited to partner with CreditVidya in their mission to reimagine credit scoring in India.”

CreditVidya has previously received angel funding from Siddharth Parekh from Paragon Partners and Silicon Valley-based angel investor Munish Mehta.

CreditVidya, is a financial technology startup headquartered in Mumbai. Founded in 2013, CreditVidya’s technology platform uses non-traditional data sources to provide credit scores to hundreds of millions of Indian customers.  The technology platform helps lenders accurately assess risk of new-to-credit and thin file customers.  Lenders benefit from increased approval rates, lower cost of underwriting and more effective product cross-selling and upselling.

Image Source: ShutterStock