Fintech company Balance Hero(밸런스히어로) has accelerated its business expansion in India, reaching $300 million (KRW 400 billion) in annualised loan volume last year and becoming the only micro-lender to join the country’s top three fintech associations.

Last year, Balance Hero’s loan volume grew by more than 30 per cent year-on-year to $300 million (KRW 400 billion). Balance Hero also completed its membership of leading local associations such as IMAMAI, FACE and DLAI last year, and obtained ISO 9001, an international quality management system certification that few fintech companies have achieved.

Balance Hero is a major player in the micro-lending market in India, with a high usability and broad user base compared to local competitors such as PaySense and mPokket. Last year, its loan volume more than tripled from the beginning of the year to the end, reaching $300 million (KRW 400 billion) cumulatively, with an annual growth rate of 30%. This is significant as it is higher than the average growth rate of the Indian microcredit industry (20%).

In addition, last year Balance Hero completed its membership in the prestigious Indian Fintech Association, becoming one of the first local micro-lending fintech companies to join the three services. IMAMAI is the ‘Internet and Mobile Association of India’ and is the largest recognised association in the country with currently around 620 members. Fintech Association for Consumer Empowerment (FACE) and Digital Lenders Association of India (DLAI) are also associations of companies and organisations that represent and support the digital lending industry in India.

Balance Hero, which provides micro-loans to under-credited borrowers, has begun full-scale business expansion with an investment of $22.5 million (KRW 30 billion) last year. Based on its proprietary Alternative Credit Scoring System (ACS) technology, the company plans to enter the mid-credit borrower market in 2019 and consolidate its position as a major player in the micro-lending market.

“The Indian lending and fintech market is growing at an unprecedented pace,” said Cheolwon Charlie Lee, CEO of Balance Hero. “We are looking to achieve rapid growth of 50-100% to expand our neo-bank platform and go public in the future.”

Meanwhile, Balance Hero began to grow and monetise in earnest after the pandemic in 2021, becoming profitable at the end of 2021, seven years after its founding. In 2022, the company reached $217 million (KRW 290 billion) in processing volume, $52 million (KRW 69.4 billion) in revenue, $8 million (KRW 10.7 billion) in consolidated operating profit and $3.6 million (KRW 4.8 billion) in pre-tax profit. India’s fintech market was valued at around $138 billion last year, according to Invest India, and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 20 per cent from 2019. In particular, the share of ‘loans’ among these fintech services is growing significantly and is expected to reach around $105 billion by 2030.