Experian, one of the largest credit reporting bureaus in the United States, announced today that it has invested in CompareAsiaGroup, the financial services marketplace. Experian led the initial closing of a $20 million B1 round.
In addition to new funding, the investment also gives Hong Kong-based CompareAsiaGroup access to Experian’s technology, including Experian One, a cloud-based credit scoring and risk assessment platform. CompareAsiaGroup recently opened a research and development center in Singapore to develop more tech tools and its partnership with Experian will enable it to launch new open banking services in Hong Kong that can also be adapted for other markets.
The platform currently claims 60 million users in Asian countries, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand, which use it to comparison shop for bank accounts, personal loans, insurance, credit cards and other financial products.
This is the latest investment Experian has made in Asian fintech startups (the others include Jirnexu in Malaysia, C88 Financial Technologies Group and India’s BankBazaar). It is also participated in Grab’s Series H, announced earlier this summer.
Ben Elliot, the CEO of Experian in Asia Pacific, tells TechCrunch that Experian focuses on investments that give more people access to financial services. “Obviously we benefit from that, but I think this really shows our commitment to Southeast Asia in particular, and also in this case Hong Kong and Taiwan,” he said about the new funding in CompareAsiaGroup. “My view is that over time we’ll see our capabilities and CompareAsiaGroup really improving the experience of customers while they are borrowing.”
CompareAsiaGroup has now raised more than $90 million to date since it was founded in 2014. Its other investors include World Bank Group member IFC, Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, ACE and Company, Jardines, Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, SBI Group and H&Q Utrust.