The Chinese firm plans to expand its financial services offering, currently focused on consumer credit. DiDi Mexico identified JP Sofiexpress as the financial entity that best aligns with its business objectives, thanks to its solid experience in the market.
As part of its strategy to expand its financial services offering, the mobility giant DiDi Mexico announced that it has received approval from the authorities to acquire the popular financial company (sofipo) JP Sofiexpress.
The operation, which began to take shape at the end of last year, will allow the mobility firm to strengthen its financial services offering, currently focused on consumer credit, and thus, “develop an ecosystem that promotes financial inclusion.”
“DiDi Mexico identified that JP Sofiexpress is the financial entity that best aligns with its business objectives, thanks to its solid experience in the market. Current JP Sofiexpress clients can be sure that they will be able to continue using its services, so DiDi Mexico is committed to maintaining continuous communication with them, guaranteeing a high-quality service on an ongoing basis,” the firm reported in a statement.
Since its foray into financial services, which was three years ago, the firm has granted more than 10 million loans in a completely digital manner.
According to the firm, the technological operation for granting loans has been crucial for its expansion of financial services, since the process to access a loan takes around 10 minutes and can be done from a cell phone.
In addition, the firm requests personal information from the potential client such as name, address, CURP, RFC, interbank CLABE and two references; it also asks to upload a selfie, a video and a photo of the INE to validate the information and know how much will be loaned.
It is complemented by sofipo
By having a sofipo license, DiDi Mexico will be able to expand its offer towards savings collection products for the general public, which will allow it to fund its operation towards the credit part.
JP Sofiexpress was authorized to be established and operate as a sofipo since November 2009 and until December of last year it had 7,872 clients, 19 branches and assets for 238 million pesos, that is, only 0.33% of the total of the popular companies sector.
The current portfolio of this entity totaled, last September, a total of 194 million pesos, with a delinquency rate of 5.09 percent.
Growing interest
In recent years, there has been growing interest in the figure of Sofipos, which, although it was created to provide financial services to the base of the pyramid, its characteristics have allowed the development of digital models that do not necessarily cover this population segment, but rather focus on a massive digital offer that competes with other players, such as banks.
Thus, the figure has become an option for players seeking to offer financial services, mainly savings and credit, in a totally digital way.
Proof of this is the incursion into the popular financial sector that firms such as Nu México, Stori, Klar, and Bradesco have made, via license purchases. The last Sofipo authorized from scratch was Financiera Haai Capital, for which its start of operations is pending.
Until last May, the CNBV had pending resolution of the requests for the constitution of nine Sofipos that, it is known, have totally digital models and, in addition, it had pending authorization or rejection of the purchase of at least three more companies.
Currently, there are 37 authorized Sofipos operating, which as of December served a total of 11.5 million clients, of which 78% were savers and the rest were borrowers.
It is expected that, in the coming months, the team of Ana Paulina Andrade, legal head of Financial Services at DiDi in Mexico, will complete the acquisition of JP Sofiexpress.
Source: eleconomista
