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Lendable, FMO encourage data privacy, security in Nigeria

By Adeyemi Adepetun
12 December 2018   |   4:15 am
Lendable, the first debt platform designed specifically for African Non-bank lenders in partnership with FMO, the Dutch Development Bank has urged Nigerian...

Lendable, the first debt platform designed specifically for African Non-bank lenders in partnership with FMO, the Dutch Development Bank has urged Nigerian business community to take data privacy and data security serious.

The two organisations stated this, while hosting their latest event on data privacy and security in Lagos, as part of a series of workshops on Responsible Lending after adopting the Responsible Finance Forum’s Guidelines for Responsible Investing in Digital Financial Inclusion.

The first workshop, Data Privacy and Data Security for Alternative Lenders, took place in Nairobi, Kenya on September 18th, subsequent to the adoption of the guidelines. Lendable and FMO felt the need to translate these principles into actionable implementation steps for the company and other fintech companies, and launched this series of workshops in East and West Africa in response.

This workshop was organised to educate alternative lenders, lawyers and experts in the financial industry on best practices for implementing policy and practice lending business; and to share understanding of the responsible lending and regulatory reasons consumer protection is important, potential risks and global regulatory trends related to data privacy and security.

Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Lendable, Daniel Goldfarb, said, “If we can make sure that our lending partners are being responsible about how they find customers, how they lend and how they communicate with their customers, we will ultimately have less credit risk and better partners. At Lendable, we are passionate about making African consumer and SME credit a competitive asset class. We build technology and financial products to bring finance to borrowers that deserve it. We are flexible and help financial institution grow.”

Goldfarb added that “Lendable hopes that the conversation around consumer protection with regards to data privacy and data security continues after this workshop. We want to build an ecosystem of alternative lenders and help them grow – and being proactive about these issues is an important aspect of ensuring responsible growth.”

Academic Director and Senior Fellow, Information Systems, Lagos Business School, Yinka David-West, highlighting the importance of data protection noted that, “In a country like Nigeria that is seeking to use data and technology, we have to educate early-stage companies on the right guidelines and practices for responsible management. It is important that we secure our data in the most appropriate way to ensure that consumers’ data is protected from the point of collection through usage in order to prevent unwanted access.”

Lendable is a technology-enabled deal platform, which invests in lending companies across East and West Africa. Lendable’s technology assesses alternative lender customer collections and payment histories, using payment patterns and secondary data to predict future payments and to automatically price and monitor financing facilities.

Given Lendable’s use of data in its financing work, data privacy and security are top of mind as important issues from a business and responsibility perspective. Lendable was founded in 2014 and currently provides structured finance facilities to fast-growing alternative lenders across African markets, including off-grid energy companies, small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) lenders and asset finance companies.

Lendable’s investment and responsible lending philosophy emphasizes the importance of conducting thorough risk assessments during due diligence, promoting the responsible use of data, and lending only based on customer’ repayment capacity.

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