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Fintech startups struggle with negative app reviews from irate loan applicants – ETtech.com


Fintech startups struggle with negative app reviews from irate loan applicants If technology giant Microsoft was flummoxed by the flood of negative reviews last week for Microsoft Excel, driven by irate Indians venting their anger at washing powder Surf Excel because of a controversial advertisement, one group of Indian entrepreneurs could relate to the feeling.

Several fintech startup founders told ET that their Google Play Store apps were on the receiving end of consumer backlash multiple times, when the loan applications of their customers got rejected — for whatever reasons.

“Disgruntled borrowers tend to take to Facebook or Twitter at times when their applications are rejected, sometimes they also target Play Store ratings and reviews to hurt the image of the company,” said Aditya Kumar, founder of Qbera, a Bengaluru-based fintech startup.

Lending is not like e-commerce, where a consumer looking for a product complains on social media about not being able to find it and the company promises to make it available soon, Kumar said. “In case of lending, if a borrower is rejected, then there is no way we can undo that, there must be a valid reason behind the rejection.”

Sometimes, the application will be rejected in the documentation phase, after the borrower has already been given a ‘provisional approval’. Borrowers feel that if they get rejected after few days of filing and processing an application, there are problems with the platform.

“We have had cases where applications have got rejected after preliminary approval because of KYC issues or documentation problems; sometimes they (customers) take to Play Store downgrades, hoping they can coerce us to get their loans approved,” said Sayali Karanjkar, chief operating officer at Paysense, a Mumbai-based lending startup. “For every one-star rating on Google Play, we need six five-star ratings from other consumers which becomes a challenge.”

Also, consumers who get loans smoothly do not give positive reviews on social media because borrowing for personal consumption is not appreciated in India, she said. “It is mostly when someone has a bad experience do they take the pains to complain or write reviews.”

A lower rating not only affects discovery of the app, it also affects the quality of the applications, said industry insiders. Rejected borrowers might try low-rated platforms hoping they could get the money faster.

Fintech startups struggle with negative app reviews from irate loan applicants Mumbai-based Cashe’s chief executive, Ketan Patel, puts forth a different perspective. According to him, the negative reviews mostly emanate from consumers who get rejection after a delay in processing of the application.

“In this business, the rejection rates are very high; we have more than 2.8 million downloads and only a fraction have been given loans. We have managed to handle consumer complaints very effectively,” said Patel. “We have chat bots who deal with more than 80% of the customer complaints and a dedicated 10-member in-house team to handle escalations.”

Besides fintech lenders, even peer-to-peer platforms suffer from a similar problem, but they have accepted it as a part of business.

“Generally, borrowers approaching P2P are the ones who could not get loans from a bank, they come with an understanding that 100% of their application will go through,” said Rajiv M Ranjan, chairman of Mumbai-based P2P platform Paisadukan. “On being rejected, they start sending us mails and rate us poorly on Play Store, but this action is mostly driven by frustration.”



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