Grab Finance Expands Credit Access Across Southeast Asia with FICO Platform
Grab Finance, the financial services arm of Southeast Asia’s leading superapp, is significantly expanding access to credit across the region by deploying the FICO® Platform in six countries. The initiative is designed to improve financial inclusion for millions of consumers, merchants, and driver-partners by using advanced decisioning tools and behavioral data drawn from Grab’s ecosystem.
Through the rollout, Grab Finance has implemented more than 22 automated decision workflows across its operations. This transformation has already increased credit offer eligibility rates for users by nearly 50 percent. The platform now supports lending decisions for more than 46 million consumers, as well as millions of merchants and drivers who rely on the Grab app for income and daily transactions.
Leveraging Behavioral Data for Inclusive Lending
The solution relies on alternative data sources to assess creditworthiness, including ride frequency, merchant revenues, and payment histories within the Grab ecosystem. These behavioral signals allow Grab to generate automated, pre-approved credit offers in real time while complying with local regulations and the company’s privacy commitments.
According to Andre Tan, Regional Head of Lending Risk Platforms at Grab Finance, the company saw a strategic opportunity to make financing more accessible by tapping into the data generated by its superapp. By using the FICO Platform, Grab can deliver contextual credit offers across multiple verticals, enabling underserved users to gain access to formal credit despite limited or nonexistent traditional credit histories.
Addressing a Large Underbanked Population
Southeast Asia is home to more than 700 million people and one of the world’s largest underbanked populations. Many individuals and small businesses lack formal credit bureau histories, making them invisible to traditional lenders. Grab Finance recognized that its platform already contained valuable indicators of economic activity, especially among drivers and merchants who generate income through the app.
By building alternative risk models based on in-app behavior, the company has been able to assess creditworthiness in new ways. This approach allows drivers, passengers, and merchants to access financing more quickly and with fewer barriers than conventional banking systems.
Managing Regulatory Complexity Across Six Countries
One of the key challenges of the initiative was the fragmented regulatory landscape across Southeast Asia. Each country has its own credit, banking, and data protection rules, requiring localized compliance and explainability. Grab Finance needed a system capable of adapting to these diverse regulations while maintaining a consistent regional framework.
The FICO Platform enabled the company to integrate compliance requirements directly into its credit decisioning workflows. This approach allowed Grab to maintain regulatory alignment across markets without sacrificing speed or scalability.
Rapid Deployment and Measurable Impact
The first phase of the transformation was completed in less than eight months, covering six countries and three customer portfolios: driver-partners, passengers, and merchant-partners. The deployment automated key processes such as credit eligibility assessments and streamlined the delivery of financing products across the region.
FICO executives highlighted the scale and impact of the project, noting that it effectively turned everyday digital behavior into a “credit passport” for millions of people previously excluded from traditional financial systems. For example, a taxi driver in Jakarta can now qualify for credit based on ride patterns, while a food merchant in Bangkok can access working capital using delivery performance data.
Industry Recognition for Financial Inclusion
The initiative has earned Grab Finance a 2026 FICO® Decision Award for Financial Inclusion. Judges recognized the company’s ability to implement credit decisioning at a regional scale while embedding regulatory diversity into its platform design.
Industry analysts noted that the project stood out because it addressed credit assessment across multiple countries simultaneously, rather than focusing on a single technology deployment. By operationalizing compliance requirements within its decisioning framework, Grab demonstrated a scalable approach to inclusive lending.
Transforming Access to Credit at Scale
With millions of users across Southeast Asia, Grab’s superapp ecosystem provides a unique foundation for financial services. By combining behavioral data with advanced analytics and automated decisioning, Grab Finance is helping to bring formal credit access to populations that have historically been overlooked by traditional lenders.
As the platform continues to evolve, the company aims to further expand financial inclusion across the region, enabling more drivers, merchants, and consumers to access the credit they need to grow their businesses and manage everyday expenses.
About Grab Finance
Grab is a leading superapp in Southeast Asia, operating across the deliveries, mobility and digital financial services sectors. Serving over 800 cities in eight Southeast Asian countries – Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam – Grab enables millions of people every day to order food or groceries, send packages, hail a ride or taxi, pay for online purchases or access services such as lending and insurance, all through a single app. We operate supermarkets in Malaysia under Jaya Grocer and Everrise, which enables us to bring the convenience of on-demand grocery delivery to more consumers in the country. As part of our financial services offerings, we also provide digital banking services through GXS Bank in Singapore and GXBank in Malaysia. Grab was founded in 2012 with the mission to drive Southeast Asia forward by creating economic empowerment for everyone. Grab strives to serve a triple bottom line – we aim to simultaneously deliver financial performance for our shareholders and have a positive social impact, which includes economic empowerment for millions of people in the region, while mitigating our environmental footprint.
About the FICO® Decision Awards
The FICO Decision Awards recognize organizations that are achieving remarkable success using FICO solutions. A panel of independent judges with deep industry expertise evaluates nominations based upon measurable improvement in key metrics; demonstrated use of best practices; project scale, depth and breadth; and innovative uses of technology.
