SUPREME Ventures Limited (SVL) microfinance subsidiary McKayla Financial Services Limited (MFSL) is now officially Evolve Loan Co Limited.

The rebranding forms part of SVL’s broader strategy to streamline its services as it establishes itself as a full-fledged transaction-based company under the Evolve brand.

Following approvals by the Companies Office of Jamaica in April, the company, during an unveiling ceremony held on Thursday, formally launched its new logo and tagline: Borrow-Build-Evolve. Its new branded paraphernalia has also adopted the flagship colours of its parent company.

SVL after first acquiring a 51 per cent stake in the lending company back in 2021 as part of diversifying its business outside of lotteries and gaming, later in 2023 purchased the remaining shareholding making it a 100 per cent owned subsidiary.

Established in 2002, McKayla Financial Services Limited has over decades built up its reputation as a micro-financing institution offering hassle-free loans at competitive rates to individuals and small businesses. The company currently operates across seven branches islandwide and serves over 3,000 customers.

“Since acquiring McKayla, we’ve been talking to customers and have realised that the McKayala name was not fitting, and so we thought it best to have it align with our other financial products. We’ve already launched Evolve Money Transfer and, more recently, Evolve Bill Pay, so this rebrand brings our lending services in line with the rest of our portfolio,” said Delroy Anderson, chief innovation officer at Supreme Ventures Fintech Limited (SVFL), in an interview with the Jamaica Observer.

Evolve Loan Co will continue to operate under its existing microcredit licence from the Bank of Jamaica and comply fully with all regulatory requirements. Presently, the company offers a wide range of loan products for personal, health care, legal, educational, and other needs. Starting at $25,000, loans can be accessed up to $5 million or more based on conditionality.

As SVL positions itself to delve deeper into the financial services sector, Anderson said the expansion of its micro-lending operations, along with new fintech product roll-outs, will position Evolve Loan Co as a major contributor to group revenues in the next two years. SVL’s last financial year saw revenues exceed $50 billion.

“With Evolve Loan Co and the other fintech services that we’ll launch, we believe we can capture a significant share of the market — particularly among the unbanked and underbanked populations. What we’re doing is trying to make things easier for borrowers Pending regulations, we also plan to convert some of our over 2,000 gaming locations to payment centres through which customers will be able to apply for loans,” Anderson said, while noting that the focus right now was to get the brand out to market.

The company’s rebrand launch also coincides with its new back-to-school promotion, which begins this weekend. The campaign targets borrowers seeking loans of up to $500,000 to prepare for the upcoming academic school year in September. In partnership with select private sector entities, the promotion includes additional benefits and a 50 per cent interest rate reduction during the campaign period.

As the company looks to build out a greater online presence and double down on the use of technology, application for loans can also be done and monitored via its website. The company is also preparing to launch a WhatsApp-based lending platform called Evolve Lend, which is expected to go live within a month’s time.

“Through this service borrowers will be able to access some of our smaller loans for which they are not required to come in to sign documents. We will still however need to verify identification which we will do through picture and document uploads and also credit report assessments. The end game is to however have loans disbursed through this service within a matter of hours or even minutes after applying,” Anderson said while noting that the systems are already being integrated to enable these transactions.

Looking ahead, the company plans to roll out a mobile app after the WhatsApp service is fully launched.

“At the moment everybody has access to WhatsApp so I don’t see what will beat that, in terms of attracting volumes,” Anderson added.