87% of GX Bank’s small-business borrowers had never held a loan before. Deputy CEO Hildah Hamzah explains how the bank reaches them and still makes money.
Hildah Hamzah is Deputy CEO and COO of GX Bank, Malaysia’s first digital bank. She joined as employee number three and helped grow the team to around 400 people, with the bank focused on serving the B40 and M40 segments. She sat down with Fintech News Network to talk through whether digital banks have delivered on the financial inclusion they promised.
In this episode:
- How 87% of its MSME borrowers were new to credit, and the way GX Bank underwrote a segment most banks avoid
- Why Hildah argues a bank has to be profitable before it can do much good, using the logic of zakat
- The difference between consumptive and productive borrowing, and whether easy access to credit counts as inclusion or something closer to engineered consumerism