JMMB Group, Liberty form fintech joint-venture Myne Lend

JMMB Group and partner Liberty Latin America have launched a fintech service called MYNE Lend that will rely on data mined from Flow Jamaica customers to facilitate microloans of up to $150,000.

It’s to be operated by Myne Lend Jamaica Limited, a joint venture in which JMMB is said by Group Strategy Officer Claudine Tracey to hold 50.5 per cent interest, while Liberty Latin America and subsidiaries hold the other 49.5 per cent. Telecommunications provider Liberty Latin America is the ultimate parent company for Flow operations in Jamaica and around the Caribbean.

Myne Lend Jamaica is based at JMMB Group’s main complex in New Kingston.

The technological underpinnings of the new platform are supported by Flow Jamaica, in partnership with Visa and Evertec. MYNE Lend will be available exclusively to Flow customers, which number more then one million.

The digital wallet will do double duty as a microlending service, while offering a tap-to-pay feature. The app is comparable to well-known mobile payment systems like Samsung Pay and Google Pay, due to its tap-and-pay function, with no physical card required, a joint release from the companies said.

“We have a first-of-its-kind virtual Visa card on your phone, which can be used with tap-and-pay machines wherever they are in Jamaica,” Country Manager for Flow Jamaica, Stephen Price, said in an interview with the Financial Gleaner.

The wallet is Flow Jamaica’s first foray into the fintech market. Price would not quote the interest rates MYNE Lend will charge for the loans, but asserted that they are substantially lower than the typical loan obtained in the microlending sector.

MYNE Lend is the brainchild of Liberty Latin America’s fintech subsidiary Mynehub.

“They came up with the concept and needed partners within the space; JMMB was obviously a ready partner, and we did a deal,” Price said.

Flow Jamaica already operates a service called Flow Lend that loans call-credit to mobile customers, but it’s not a fintech service, Price said.

The new MYNE Lend service, which is licensed by the Bank of Jamaica to do mircolending, will leverage data on phone usage on Flow’s network. The microloans will be on offer to individuals only, but the Flow country manager said that as demand for the service grows, MYNE Lend would consider the addition of small business lending.

“We are probably the only company that has been able to harness that data, use it, along with the JMMB data, plus our postpaid payment data, in order to create the kind of risk profile to determine who pays, who cannot pay, who to lend to, and who not to lend to,” Price said.

As to the company’s reliance on its customers’ data to drive the new business, the Flow manager said that just by virtue of never reading through the terms and conditions for use of tech platforms before clicking ‘accept’, many people freely surrender information to the likes of Google, Facebook operator Meta, and others.

However, he asserted that Flow would not be harvesting its customers’ data, meaning that the telecoms will not package the data for sale to others. Only Flow and JMMB Group will have access to it, Price said.

“We’re just using regular credit adjudication methods by looking at payments, loans, history, and all of those items that can be used to create a profile, so that we can help our customers,” he explained .

JMMB Group strategist Claudine Tracey said credit adjudication allows for the use of alternative sources for risk assessment of borrowers who might not have a credit history or credit score.

“Using alternative adjudication measures, such as data on your phone, can tell you even more than if we were to see the person face-to-face,” Tracey said.

MYNE Lend is JMMB Group’s first venture into muicrolending in Jamaica, but it already operates in that space through JMMB Express Finance in Trinidad & Tobago. The group sees Flow Jamaica’s 1.2 million to 1.3 million customers as a “fantastic starting point to mine data”, the strategist said.

“Our customers have reacted very well to this product, and it was always our intention to bring that model to Jamaica, but we knew that we’d have to have a very innovative entry strategy and one that would show true financial inclusion,” Tracey said.

Jamaica’s fintech market is still evolving, facilitated by the central bank’s ‘fintech sandbox’, a sort of incubator, that was set up to drive innovation, and accelerate approval for and market roll-out of services.

MYNE Lend, itself, was not a sandbox project.

“The beauty of it is that this is a credit solution, but the proceeds from the loan go to a digital wallet, which is a tokenized Visa card,” said Tracey of the MYNE Lend product.

The virtual card drives the utility of the wallet without the need for topping up, she said, and is tenable wherever Visa is accepted, whether it is a fast-food restaurant or the supermarket, said Tracey.

“You don’t have to wonder if this vendor will accept my token card,” she said.

Going forward, JMMB Group wants to deploy MYNE Lend in other Caribbean markets, even those in which JMMB itself has no presence. The financial conglomerate, which is in the business of securities trading and banking, operates in Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Trinidad & Tobago, and Barbados, whereas Price says FLow has a presence in 20 markets through ultimate parent Liberty.

Tracey said JMMB would not limiting itself to the Caribbean, but will extend efforts to the Latin American market as part of its push to expand its fintech footprint.

“Based on our partnership, we can co-explore or explore opportunities on our own, with the requisite rights of first refusal and so on,” she said of the agreement with Liberty.

“Both entities are in expansion mode and wherever it works for both of us as partners, that’s where we will go that is the preferred route,” the JMMB strategist said.

neville.graham@gleanerjm.com