Naver Financial's 'Business Loan' One Month After Launch... "Loan Approval Rate 40%"

Average Loan Amount Approximately 25 Million KRW
Average Loan Interest Rate Approximately 5.5% Per Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki Ha-young] It has been revealed that Naver Financial loaned approximately 25 million KRW at an average annual interest rate of 5.5% to 40% of applicants within one month through the loan product introduced for Naver Smart Store business operators.

Naver Financial disclosed the one-month performance of the Mirae Asset Capital Smart Store Business Operator Loan, launched on December 1 last year in collaboration with Mirae Asset Capital, on the 5th.

According to this, 16% of eligible loan applicants (Smart Store business operators with sales of over 1 million KRW for three consecutive months prior to the application date) applied for loans in the past month, and 40% of them were approved. The average loan amount for business operators who executed the Smart Store business loan was approximately 25 million KRW, with an average annual interest rate of about 5.5%.

In particular, the loan approval rate for thin-file applicants with no financial history recorded 52%. The company explained that the high approval rate was possible thanks to the Alternative Credit Scoring System (ACSS), which evaluates credit by utilizing non-financial information from Smart Store.

Naver Financial built its unique Alternative Credit Scoring System (ACSS) by combining various real-time data generated on Smart Store, such as sales flow, proportion of regular customers, customer reviews, and return rates, with existing financial data from credit bureaus (CB), and applying Naver’s artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning and big data processing technologies for Smart Store business operators who have little financial information.

Kim Tae-kyung, leader in charge of the Mirae Asset Capital Smart Store Business Operator Loan service, said, "This service is an innovative attempt using the Alternative Credit Scoring System for the first time in the industry, and we expect it to become an important foundation for meaningful financial services for financially marginalized groups such as thin-file and SME customers that Naver Financial will introduce in the future." He added, "We will gradually relax the eligibility criteria to lower the loan barriers for more business operators and continuously advance the Alternative Credit Scoring System to reduce financial blind spots."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.