From Superapp Data to Credit Access: Grab Finance Scales Lending Across Southeast Asia
22 decision workflows deployed across six countries in under 8 months with FICO Platform
Grab Finance, the financial services arm of Southeast Asia's leading super app, is using the industry-leading capabilities of FICO® Platform to transform credit access across the region. By implementing more than 22 decision workflows across six countries, the company has increased credit offer eligibility rates by nearly 50% for its users while serving more than 46 million consumers, plus millions of merchants and drivers across its ecosystem. The transformation has enabled more of Grab’s drivers, merchants, and passengers to, not just access formal credit, but also do this at a much faster rate.
The solution uses appropriate behavioral data - including ride frequency, merchant revenues and payment history - supported by the industry-leading capabilities of FICO® Platform to enable automated pre-approved offers across Grab’s ecosystem in line with applicable laws and Grab’s privacy commitments.
For its achievements, Grab Finance won a 2026 FICO® Decision Award for Financial Inclusion.
“Grab saw a strategic opportunity to make financing in Southeast Asia more accessible by leveraging our superapp ecosystem and behavioral data,” said Andre Tan, Regional Head, Lending Risk Platforms at Grab Finance. “Using FICO Platform, we can deliver contextual, real-time credit offers across multiple verticals within the Grab super app. This enables us to expand financial inclusion by providing credit access for underserved users who are economically active but often overlooked by traditional lenders.”
Conquering Southeast Asia's Credit Challenges
Southeast Asia, home to more than 700 million people, has one of the world's largest underbanked populations. Grab Finance saw an opportunity to deliver responsible, scalable credit services across this diverse and complex region, given Grab’s scale and data-rich ecosystem.
One of the key challenges faced by many individuals and businesses in the region as they seek credit was data scarcity arising from their lack of traditional bureau history, leaving them thin-file or no-file. Grab needed to develop alternative risk models using in-app behavioral signals, such as ride patterns, merchant activity, and payment habits.
Additionally, the fragmented regulatory landscape meant credit, banking, and data protection laws differed significantly across Southeast Asian countries, requiring localized compliance and explainability without losing regional consistency.
“We had millions of drivers and merchants who were invisible to traditional banks but were earning real income every day on our platform," said Tan. “We knew we could change that equation, but we needed technology that could support our efforts to see what conventional credit scoring couldn't.”
Rapid Time-to-Value
FICO was able to deliver phase one of the transformation across six countries, which Grab operates in, in under eight months, enabling Grab to automate key processes, such as credit eligibility assessment. The ambitious project involved 22 separate decision workflows delivered across the region and Grab’s three customer portfolios (i.e. its driver-partners, passengers, and merchant-partners).
“This project drew attention because Grab Finance addressed credit assessment at a regional scale, rather than focusing solely on a discrete technology implementation,” said Sam Abadir, research director, risk and compliance, IDC Financial Insights, and a judge for the FICO Decision Awards. “The judges noted how the organization operationalized regulatory diversity across Southeast Asia within its credit decisioning framework, demonstrating an approach that integrates compliance requirements directly into platform design.”
How FICO Can Help You Lend To More People
FICO’s AI-powered decisioning uses behavioural and alternative data to help lenders unlock credit opportunities for thin- and no-file customers. By combining machine learning, diverse data sources and real-time decisioning, FICO enables faster approvals, improved risk accuracy and scalable, inclusive credit experiences.
- Read more about FICO Platform
- Read and watch GXS Bank’s story to see how they deliver loan approvals in under 3 minutes with 90% straight-through processing using FICO Platform.
- See how Trust Bank does it—achieving 80% STP and cutting manual reviews by 50% to onboard customers faster and smarter.
- Explore the FICO Financial Inclusion Initiative
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FICO® Score High Achievers: Is Age the Only Factor?
<p>FICO’s latest research on <a href="http://www.fico.com/en/blogs/risk-compliance/us-credit-quality-rising-the-beat-goes-on/" target="_blank">national FICO® Score distribution</a> shows that US credit quality continues to trend upwards, with an increasing number of consumers scoring in the highest scores ranges. Given that, we decided it was time to refresh our study on “<a href="http://www.fico.com/en/blogs/risk-compliance/infographic-what-does-a-high-credit-scorer-look-like/" target="_blank">FICO® Score high achievers</a>,” where we examine the credit behavioural profiles of consumers with higher credit scores.</p> <p>As expected, our latest study showed that older people generally have higher scores, as has been the case in our <a href="http://www.fico.com/en/blogs/risk-compliance/age-before-beauty-credit-worthiness-before-youth/" target="_blank">past research</a>. This is largely because they have trade lines that have been open longer, which leads to higher scores (assuming the trade lines are in good standing and all other things equal). The most credit savvy among you will remember that length of credit history accounts for roughly 15% of the overall <a href="http://www.myfico.com/CreditEducation/WhatsInYourScore.aspx" target="_blank">FICO® Score calculation</a>.</p> <p>But for younger consumers, it isn’t too helpful to say, “just wait until you are 50 years old, and that will fix things!” Thus, I decided to dive deeper with our analysis, including looking at the credit behavioural characteristics of younger consumers with high FICO® Scores.</p> <p>In this analysis, I looked at credit characteristics for the two highest score bands, 750-799 and 800-850, which have about 16% and 23% of the population, respectively. I further broke this down by looking at the characteristics of the youngest 15% in each group, which occurs at age 29 for the 750-799 group and 43 for the 800-850. We used FICO<strong>®</strong> Score 9 for our analysis, and examined typical variables of the categories that go into the make-up of the score.</p> <p><a href="http://www.fico.com/en/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/FICO-Score-High-Achiever-table.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-29367" src="http://www.fico.com/en/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/FICO-Score-High-Achiever-table.png" alt="fico-score-high-achiever-table" width="715" height="747" /></a></p> <p>Since there’s a lot to dissect in this chart, I’ll highlight a few findings that struck me: <ul> <li><strong>Credit history.</strong> Higher scores are undoubtedly associated with a longer time on file. What’s striking is the higher average time on file for the 800+ group, both overall and for revolving accounts (the most common trade line). Clearly, it helps to start credit use early in life – but that’s not the sole determining factor for high scoring. The younger cohorts in both the 800+ and 750-799 groups have time on file medians significantly less than their older counterparts.</li> <li><strong>New credit.</strong> High credit scorers do, in fact, pursue new credit. We see little variation in months since last trade line opening and last inquiry among all groups observed.</li> <li><strong>Pay on time.</strong> As you might expect, the further in the past the delinquency, the higher the score – and that’s <u>if</u> a delinquency ever happened. 95% of the 800+ people and 72% of the 750-799 group have never been delinquent, which is a striking contrast to the 57% for the total population. The percentages for the younger groups are even higher, especially so for the 750-799ers. Collection items are also scarce for these high scorers. While 23% of the national population have collection items greater than $99, the figures are only 0.5% for the 800+ group and 3% for the 750-799 group. It is clear that, in conjunction with starting a credit file early, paying on time is a key trait of the FICO® Score high achiever.</li> <li><strong>Balance and utilization.</strong> Finally, we look at how credit is being used, focusing on revolving product use. (Since most people only have one mortgage or one auto loan, variation in instalment product figures is minimal and driven by payment history, which is near perfect for high scorers, as we’ve seen.) FICO® Score high achievers tend to have more open revolving accounts. While the % active trades and utilization are generally lower, by no means do high scorers avoid the use of credit products. What drives the difference here is the amount of <u>available</u> revolving credit utilized. The 800+ group is roughly 1/4 of the national median, both in total and on their highest utilized card; they also have lower balances and more cards<em>. </em>The 750-799 group is more active and higher utilized, but still only at 2/3 of the national figures. The young 750-799 group compensate with lower revolving balances and, as a result, lower utilization, which is in line with what we see for the 800+ group.</li> <li><strong>Benchmarks.</strong> I’d like to point out that while this study provides good benchmarks of the typical credit traits of the FICO® Score high achiever, individual credit profiles will vary widely. And keep in mind that when we sort groups of consumers as a whole by different behaviours, some results may look superficially odd. For example, the 800+ band has a longer median average open account time (128 months) than average revolving months on file (140 months).</li> </ul> So, what do we conclude? A huge takeaway is that high scorers don’t have too much in the way of serious delinquencies and negative public record data.</p> <p>In most respects, the young 800+ people are like their peer group. They really only differ markedly in their shorter credit history and higher non-mortgage balance, both of which are a function of life stage. Our results show that you don’t have to be a credit product hermit; these high scorers have more credit cards. The takeaway is to start credit activity early and maintain well-managed and moderate usage.</p> <p>In many ways, the young 750-799 people are more interesting because their age profile is much younger. Their credit characteristics differ more from their peer group, particularly in terms of length of credit history. They compensate by having almost pristine credit records and lower balances.</p> <p>Ultimately, 39% of US consumers are FICO® Score high achievers, which they accomplish by following common-sense credit practices. It ain’t rocket science!</p>
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