Key Insights from the Argentina Fintech Forum 2023: Digital Credit Trends and Analysis

The Argentina Fintech Forum 2023 began, the event that brings together the main industry leaders, which will take place this Tuesday, November 7 online and on Wednesday the 8th in person.

Con more than 60 national and international speakers confirmedwho will be part of panels with exclusive and cutting-edge content, the event touched on a key topic, increasingly on the rise in Argentina: the digital credit.

Along these lines, one of the panels of the first day was “Digital Credit Insights“, in which the following exponents belonging to Equifax:

• Luciano Bernardoni (Sales Manager)
• Martina González (Marketing Manager)
• Daiana Garcia (NPI Project Leader)

Digital credit: main insights in Argentina

Like every year, the consumer credit reporting company prepares its report “Digital Credit Insights“, which provided details about How fintech contributed to credit rates in the last year.

Specifically, he revealed that companies in this sector took 32% of new credits requested so far in 2023.

“Fintech companies occupy an increasingly central role in the credit market in recent years. If we analyze only the period from July of last year to July of this year, the 36% of fintech registrations through digital credit are new entrants to the financial system,” García said, referring to the study.

“These firms managed to maintain their contribution to credit additions, with stable and lasting rates over time, above 30% from mid-2022 to date,” he added.

Regarding private credits, Bernardoni mentioned that 45% of those who requested a loan did so for a term greater than one yearand 30% in an exact period of 365 days and a 25% in a shorter period of time.

Digital credit: how much money do Argentines request from fintech companies?

Regarding the amounts requested, the report detailed that the average of The money requested per operation was close to $200,000 in mid-2022, a figure that grew as a consequence of inflation rates. Today, that number already exceeds $300,000 per applicationthe same figure as the real average balance granted by companies in the industry.

In terms of the target of credit takers, García commented that the Women “appear with a central role in the loans granted by fintechs”, with 52% of all registrations requested in the last year, while men cover the 48%.

In terms of age range, the Millennials (25 to 40 years old) are the generation that took out the most loans nationwide in the period studied, with a 48% of the market. It is followed by Generation X (41 to 57 years old) with 23%, Generation Z (19 to 24 years old) with 22% and Baby Boomers (58 to 75 years old) with 6%.

“We can see that the industry increasingly reaches all generations, beyond the predominance of millennials. Year after year, this instrument opens up to other generations with increasing participation from different segments,” emphasized the Sales Manager.

Profile of the credit taker by generation in the fintech sector (Source: Equifax/Argentina Fintech Forum)

For his part, González expressed: “these numbers reflect two factors: the growing digitalization of society and a industry that opened its offer to other generations that was not covered in previous years.

Additionally, the report highlighted that The central region of the country is the largest borrower with 36%while the work profile of those requesting a loan in Argentina showed the following data:

• Without obvious situation (58%)
• Dependency relationship (24%)
• Self-employed or single-payer (15%)
• Retirees (3%)

Digital credit: how much is the risk in the fintech sector

Finally, one of the last topics discussed at the conference was that of risks. In this regard, the Project Leader highlighted: “if we look at the score, which is our metric that measures a person’s payment risk, in the case of fintech, the 60% of policyholders have a medium score, indicating that the behavior of this segment is positive“.

Refering to late payment average of the sector, up to a 80% of people who take out credit in the industry do not have any delays.

“At the delinquency level, these data show that the fintech ecosystem is very healthy, avoiding over-indebtedness. One of the actors in the financial system such as fintech is committed to transparency and debunking the myths that revolve around it,” concluded Bernardoni.