New forms of lending that leverage technology while also widening financial access through innovation are in high demand across Asia.
FinVolution is a case in point. As a leading fintech company with operations in China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Pakistan, it has been rolling out an international expansion plan via strategic collaborations and advancements in AI-driven credit technology through loan channelling – where traditional financial institutions use FinVolution’s technology to efficiently disburse loans to tech-savvy and unbanked populations.
The growth story speaks for itself. Looking at the firm’s latest financial results, for the first quarter of 2025, it achieved a 10% year-over-year revenue jump, fuelled by an expanding take rate in China and surging international demand. Quarterly net profit hit a record-breaking Rmb738 million (US$101.7 million), representing a 39% year-over-year increase.
Growth in international transaction volume has played a key role, up 36% year-over-year, to complement China's steady 7% growth. In only the first three months of 2025, strong momentum in borrower acquisition across all markets saw FinVolution onboard 1.2 million new borrowers, up 62% year-over-year.
Success has been notable in the Philippines. Highlights of the first quarter of this year, for example, were growth in transaction volume of 118% year-over-year, with the market accounting for 37% of FinVolution’s international loan balance, compared with 23% in the first quarter of 2024. Improvements in risk management and deeper collaboration with banks and major e-commerce platforms have helped to spur this progress.
Prioritising partnerships
Recent results show there’s no shortage of opportunities for FinVolution in the Asian digital finance market. And by forming strategic partnerships with local players to drive funding and user acquisition, the firm is focused on ensuring scalability and relevance.
“As we continue to expand and diversify our product offerings, we are not only partnering with leading banks but also strengthening collaboration with major e-commerce companies, social media platforms and consumer goods brands,” explained Ruan.
In short, FinVolution bridges the gap where traditional financial institutions often face challenges in serving near-prime customers, particularly in customer acquisition, credit screening and risk control. This is where the agility of fintech thrives – redefining traditional lending by combining the strengths of banks with end-to-end technology solutions to span the entire digital lending lifecycle, to streamline operations, strengthen risk management and empower licenced institutions to extend credit more effectively to underserved segments.
In the Philippines, for instance, a key milestone last year was establishing a credit bureau, licensed by the country’s Credit Information Corporation (CIC). “This initiative allows us to actively contribute to the development of a more modern and inclusive credit infrastructure in the region,” added Ruan.
It also reflects the firm’s approach to each market where it operates – with localisation a strategic priority. It deploys dedicated local business development teams with extensive financial sector experience to drive institutional partnership acquisition.
Within the financial institution space, FinVolution’s strategy inevitably means that it prefers digitally-enabled local banks, due to their capacity for API-driven system integration to enable end-to-end straight-through processing of loans.
This approach is paying off. To date, FinVolution has partnered with 128 financial institutions across global markets, serving 33.8 million cumulative borrowers and facilitating over US$137 billion in loans. “This scale reflects the strength and effectiveness of our collaborative model with banks,” said Ruan.
Yet collaborating with leading e-commerce platform partners is vital, too, based on criteria such as customer acquisition abilities, brand influence and user experience.
Making tech work in all markets
By incorporating AI-powered credit technology and large language models into its solutions, FinVolution has seen its end-to-end credit solutions deliver financial inclusion and sustainable growth.
However, it is far from a one-size-fits-all model. Instead, the technology must be adaptable. “The pace of advancement in AI and data analytics is relentless, so we’ve learned to build our systems with flexibility at their core,” said Ruan.
In turn, the firm has continuously evolved its models and infrastructure in response to new trends, user behaviour and regulatory requirements. At the same time, it integrates the latest advancements in AI and big data to make the entire credit lifecycle more intelligent, secure and seamless.
Recent evidence of that is Zeta, FinVolution’s AI-powered innovation platform that supports intelligent operations across business functions including customer acquisition, risk management and user engagement. By the end of 2024, Zeta had supported over 1,000 large model applications and integrated DeepSeek-R1. Specific benefits of leveraging AI in this way have been to reduce advertising content production costs by 60%. In customer service, technology to summarise voices has improved agent productivity by 20 times, as a result of shortening average call handling time from 20 minutes to just 60 seconds.
Catering to local demand is also essential. Despite the underlying technologies being universal, their effectiveness depends heavily on how well they are adapted to local market dynamics – from customer preferences and risk profiles to compliance standards.
Pursuing a global vision
Capitalising on the demand in local markets across Asia will drive the next phase of FinVolution’s success story.
Diversification is a core focus, with plans to accelerate its overseas expansion. More specifically, it wants to enter 10 markets in Asia Pacific by 2030, and increase the revenue generated from its international business to 50% by that time, from around 20% today.
Local partnerships will be fundamental in supporting this goal. FinVolution is accelerating efforts to obtain financial licenses and expand its offerings in new markets. By diversifying its global footprint, it is laying a strong foundation for sustainable and long-term international growth.
Delivering on this agenda requires the firm to overcome certain hurdles. Among them are various local regulatory policies and risks. Further, in some regions like Southeast Asia, the financial infrastructure and credit reporting systems are relatively underdeveloped, making data acquisition difficult and affecting the accuracy and comprehensiveness of risk assessment.
For FinVolution, however, it can count on nearly two decades of experience in China’s dynamic fintech landscape to help it achieve its goals.
“We’ve developed a deep understanding of the full credit cycle and the ability to anticipate and adapt to evolving regulatory environments,” said Ruan. “This foundation equips us with strong regional insights and operational know-how, enabling us to tailor our solutions to diverse market conditions, regulatory frameworks and customer behaviours across international markets.”
