THE JMMB Group and Flow Jamaica are going after a share of the $46-billion microcredit market in Jamaica with the launch of MYNE LEND, a 100 per cent digital microlender.

MYNE LEND, launched Monday, will offer loans of up to $150,000 exclusively to select Flow Jamaica mobile customers who will then be able to spend the funds through a digital Visa card using a tap-and-go feature at point-of-sales machines at any merchant who accepts Visa debit and credit cards or could even cash out the loan at JMMB Money Transfer locations islandwide. Flow Jamaica has about 1.2 million customers while JMMB serves about 460,000 across Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago.

“This launch comes at an opportune time. Jamaica is on the cusp of fintech expansion with more citizens desirous of fast and convenient ways to conduct transactions. There is a large percentage of the unbanked and underbanked persons who are not readily able to access financial support due to little or no credit history. MYNE LEND represents financial freedom for many. We are excited about the many doors this will open for hard-working Jamaicans to improve their condition and to help them revitalise the Jamaican economy,” Elson James, CEO of MYNE LEND, said in a voicenote that was shared with the Jamaica Observer on Monday, shortly after the press release announcing the launch of the company. James is also the CEO of JMMB Express Finance, the Trinidad and Tobago-based microfinance company in the JMMB Group.

He noted that Flow customers who are targeted for loans through MYNE LEND will get an invitation through WhatsApp which, if they accept, will see them getting a follow-up invitation code that takes them to the Google Play store to download the Myne app through which they register and apply for the loan. If approved, the funds are sent to a secure digital Visa card that is housed within the app. As for loan payments, these are to be made at any Bill Express via their website or the nearest Bill Express location.

“It is a new revenue stream for Liberty Latin America, in terms of financial inclusion,” said Stephen Price, vice-president and general manager of Flow Jamaica, during an interview with the Business Observer.

Liberty Latin America, the parent company of Flow Jamaica, owns 49.5 per cent of MYNE LEND through two of its subsidiaries, Myne Hub Ventures, a fintech registered in Spain, and CWC Cala Holdings, the entity through which it acquired Cable and Wireless Jamaica in 2018. Myne Hub owns 35 per cent of MYNE LEND while CWC Cala Holdings holds the other 14.5 per cent. The JMMB Group owns the other 50.5 per cent of MYNE LEND.

While Price did not directly address the impact the new venture is expected to have on Flow Jamaica’s bottom line, he said the move away from the telco’s core business into microfinance is a strategic initiative that will be replicated in other territories in the region.

“We would like to become the soft bank of the Caribbean with the partnerships we create across the region. From our perspective, the Caribbean and Latin America are ripe for this kind of disruption… we believe it is something we can grow from, and also us providing the level of access [to our customers], we believe will really push people towards social development, poverty reduction and economic growth because we are able to fund the dreams of citizens right across the country,” Price continued.

He said it is part of the digital transformation the country is undergoing in the payments, loans and banking sector.

“I think we believe, along with JMMB, that access to credit across the length and breadth of the country for the ordinary Jamaicans has not been an easy road, and I think what we bring to the table is to use the technology that we have as a railways for this application and using the data available to the business involved, we are able to create a unique credit adjudication system which is unlike any that now exists in the country and can give a response within 10 minutes if that loan is approved or not,” he noted.

He said apart from an easier credit adjudication system based on how Flow Jamaica customers behave, MYNE LEND will “bring in affordable interest rates where customers can gravitate towards us”.

JMMB Group already operates a micro-credit company in Trinidad and Tobago called JMMB Express Finance which it launched around 2018 and its push into the Jamaica market now, it said, is part of its financial inclusion strategy to expand its reach beyond its traditional core clients as it pushes for growth.

“It was always our intention to push that through all of our operating territories, including Jamaica. Since about 2018/2019, we have been exploring what would be the best market entry strategy into Jamaica because the market is pretty concentrated and we didn’t want to just offer yet another microfinance product. We wanted to be able to offer something that would have differentiated ourselves and met the needs of our potential new client base that we would now be broadening ourselves to serve. We feel like we have done well with our core target, which is mid-income to emerging high network to high network clients, and we probably believe that JMMB at its core wants to provide opportunities, and we believe there is an untapped market that we really weren’t penetrating or pushing into,” Claudine Tracey, chief strategy officer at the JMMB Group, told the Business Observer.

Tracey said while JMMB Group was looking for the right opportunity to enter the Jamaica microcredit market, the partnership with Liberty Latin America “presented itself” and was explored.

“Both Liberty and JMMB around about the same time were exploring the same strategy. Liberty actually reached out to us, because they wanted a banking partner and it was very timely,” Tracey added.

She pointed out that it is a deepening of the relationship between the two companies that had worked on other projects in the past, including a gift card.

“It was cliche, really and truly a match made in heaven. They brought the technology and their customer base and we brought our banking experience, not just traditional banking but our experience from Trinidad and Tobago in microlending and it just came together from there,” Tracey acknowledged.

She said that unlike other mobile wallets that have been launched in recent years, the MYNE LEND mobile wallet is not “closed loop” and gives broader access to customers to spend.

“The beauty is that, we not only give you a Visa for you to have, but for you to use it. It is pushed by the loan so it is not that we are saying, ‘OK, here is a wallet and now you go fund your wallet, and now you go use it.’ The main reason for accessing this product is to get a loan. Now you access the loan, you now have this broad range of merchants because of Visa, locally and online, that you can use them with, so why not just use the card? So we have given the cards use, a purpose to use it which I think is a lot different from what we have seen with other mobile wallets.”

She said the intention is to make more products available in the Myne app mobile wallet, but declined to divulge those plans at this time. Still, she said that Myne Hub, which is an equity partner, could explore other markets with JMMB, including Barbados.