BetterPlace, a frontline workforce management SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) platform has marked its foray into the financial service sector with the launch of BetterPlace Money.
The newly launched initiative aims to make more than 10 million global frontline workers creditworthy by 2025.
BetterPlace Money will enable enterprises to provide short-term loans for their frontline workers via its SaaS platform. The vertical eyes to benefit more than four million workers immediately and will expand to serve BetterPlace’s frontline workforce base across APAC and GCC in the next few months.
According to a statement by BetterPlace, India, APAC, and GCC have more than 450 million frontline workers contributing more than 20 per cent to the country’s GDP on average. However, they are the most underserved cohort when it comes to access to formal financial services. In India alone, only one in 10 frontline workers have access to formal credit.
BetterPlace Money aims to solve these problems by leveraging the data and distribution strength of BetterPlace’s full-stack platform. It targets to enable frontline workers to get easy access to short-term loans at low-interest rates, in a simple and hassle-free manner.
Pravin Agarawala, Group CEO and co-founder at BetterPlace said, “Credit to frontline workers is a $70 billion opportunity in India, APAC, and GCC and yet there are no significant players tapping into this market segment. While the lack of reliable data and the high cost of servicing this segment has prohibited the supply of credit, a lack of financial awareness among frontline workers has also restricted the demand. Most frontline workers in our side of the world still rely on informal sources of finance which is not only unsustainable but also puts them in a debt trap placing them just a nudge away from poverty.