WeLab Holdings Ltd., the Hong Kong-based online lending firm, has filed for an IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Founded in 2013, the company operates an online consumer credit business and also provides consumer lending technology solutions to other lenders.
WeLab facilitates online consumer loans through WeLend, one of the first online lenders in Hong Kong, and WoLaiDai (我来贷), a marketplace lending platform for the mainland China.
While the site for Hong Kong is a balance-sheet lender, the mainland operation is a marketplace lender that connects institutional investors and other funding partners with borrowers on the WoLaiDai platform.
WoLaiDai
The company has developed in-house pre-screening system and other risk management capabilities for WoLaiDai platform. Loan process takes about five minutes. WeDefend, its risk management and fraud detection system, analyzes some 2500 data points.
It takes about two weeks for WoLaiDai to add a funding partner onto its platform as it connects them through APIs instead of listing them directly on its site.
Funding partners include investors on peer-to-peer lending platforms, commercial banks, consumer finance companies and micro-loan companies in the mainland.
WoLaiDai had facilitated a total of 2.1 million loans and signed up 28 million registered users as of March 31, 2018. The repeat borrowing rate increased from 16.8% in 2015 to 55.3% in 2017.
The total loan originations were US$2 billion as of March 31, 2018. The average loan amount was US$1010 in 2017.
The average APR was 25.5%. M3 delinquency ratio is between 0.4% and 1.5%.
WeLend
The total loan originations on WeLend were US$292.6 million as of March 31, 2018. The average loan amount was US$11,251 in 2017.
The average APR is 24.7%. M3 delinquency ratio is between 0.1% and 0.2%.
The repeat borrowing rate increased from 25.7% in 2015 to 51.6% in 2017.
Financials
Revenue sources include interest and other fees from WeLend, loan facilitation and service fees generated from WoLaiDai and service fees from the business-facing offerings.
A majority of the revenues in 2017 was from the WoLaiDai platform. The company turned profitable in 2017.
The total assets were US$125 million, US$173 million and US$397 million in 2015, 2016 and 2017, respectively.
China's Digital Economy 