P2P Euro Lender Robocash Seeks Funding In Southeast Asia

Robocash Group, a peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform, aims to raise $5 million in the next half-year from investors in Europe who want to invest in Southeast Asia, particularly Singapore, according to reports.

The company has integrated its proprietary P2P lending platform, Robo.cash, with the company’s Singapore arm, Robocash Pte, which launched in 2015 to help support the Robocash Group’s Southeast Asia operations.

With the completed integration, Robo.cash users can invest in the region and its development. Robo.cash has about 9,200 registered users and has attracted investments exceeding a value of $10.6 million.

“This integration will significantly accelerate our development in the region. The attracted funds will not only support the development of our companies, but [will] also facilitate financial inclusion in the region,” said Robocash Group Founder and CEO Sergey Sedov.

Robo.cash already has relationships with RoboCash Group firms in the Philippines and Vietnam, but the company in Singapore will be the first to extend one-year commercial loans.

P2P lending is becoming increasingly popular in Asia, exceeding some traditional European economies. Around the world, the market reached a $54 billion value, compared to $9 billion in 2014.

According to the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance, P2P lending in the region went from $108 billion in 2014 to $330 billion last year, while in Europe the market jumped from $700 million in 2015 to $2.4 billion two years later.

Robocash has said that Singapore has seen an increasing interest in P2P lending services and products over the last few years. The country’s P2P market for lending reached $83.8 million in 2017, a number that made up 58.4 percent of all lending activity in all of Southeast Asia that same year.

“We are a financial group of companies providing robotic financial services in the field of alternative lending and marketplace funding,” Robocash said on its website. “Our services are fully automated to give access to finance in a fast and comfortable way and [to] simplify international investments.”