I interned at Avail Finance, a young fin-tech startup in the heart of Bangalore. Coming back to the Corporate world after a year of studies felt really nice. Avail Finance is an online lending platform which works on a B2B2C model, where it works with employers, who in turn help their blue-collared workforce get loans through Avail. The company is a leading player in this segment which includes competitors like Shubh Loans, Paysense, Faircent, Smartcoin etc. The process of availing a loan has a multi-tiered structure where there are different stages through which a loan application has to go through in order to get either rejected, approved or cancelled. These stages include presubmission of the loan application, pre-approving, data analysis and reviewing, decision making and finally money transfer.
I worked under the “In-review” stage where I assessed the loan application based on the earnings and expenditures of customers by analyzing their bank statements and salary slips. A huge part of the evaluation is analyzing the customer’s CIBIL Report. In which, if the status is Settled, Written-off, post write off settled and post-settled write off, it leads to a decrease in the CIBIL score. Apart from this, checking for any overdue and days past due from any of the past loans shows the credit history of the customer and how he/she pays their dues. Analyzing the lifestyle of the customer by checking the expenses and also interacting on call gives us an overall idea of whether the customer is creditworthy. Based on the financial as well as the social behaviour of the customer, I decided the creditworthiness of the customer.
Working as a credit intern on Avail in the credit team gives an opportunity to be the sole decision-makers for the approval of a loan application. As mentioned above, CIBIL, financial statements and the lifestyle of a customer are judged before approving any loan. The amount a customer is eligible for and the loan tenure is also decided by the credit team. If one or more of the parameters are not fully met, the loan application gets either cancelled or rejected. If an application is canceled, the customer can immediately re-apply for the loan making sure that the parameter/s is met this time. In all other circumstances, the loan gets approved and the customer receives the loan amount.
According to the flow of an application, the stage before “in-review” is pre-approved. This is the stage where the customer’s loan application is made complete in every way and ready to be taken up by the credit team for analysis. It involves making sure all the necessary documents are present and no document is pending in the application. Calling up the customer and informing them of any missing documents is also a part of this stage. Working with the major teams namely In Review and Pre-Approved helped in understanding the entire process that the company follows from getting the customer on-board, to the final disbursement.
I express my sincere gratitude towards company mentor Mr. Jeswin George, Manager – Credit & Risk, for his constant guidance and support. It was real joy ride working with him. Coming from an engineering background, I was a bit sceptical in working on Fintech platform, but his cooperation and encouragement gave me the boost to fulfil the necessities of the internship appropriately. I am really thankful of him for sharing his valuable experience and motivating me to excel in my work.