Home loans and online loans are the most popular in Southeast Asia, Robocash Group said on Thursday.
Robocash said in a statement that based on search requests related to lending, housing loans make up 46 percent of all queries over the past 12 months.
The second place by popularity is taken by online loans (30 percent).
They are followed by credit cards (13 percent), instalment loans (3 percent), education loans (3 percent), salary loans (1 percent), auto and motorcycle loans (1 percent) and others.
“According to the United Nation, Southeast Asia is one of the fastest growing regions in terms of both the urbanization of the population and the rate of household growth. It follows that residents need funding to build their own homes,
“Another reason, which confirms the need for home loans is the location of the region around two oceans, which occasionally flood the coastal areas of these countries,” Robocash analysts said.
Another interesting segment, which gains popularity and is represented in the study is salary loans.
“Most countries in Southeast Asia used to be colonies and gained their full independence relatively recently,
“To achieve high economic performance, they needed years of continuous development,” the analysts said.
According to them, these countries are characterized with a high income inequality of their citizens, which is gradually decreasing.
“The World Bank data on the Gini 1 coefficient in 2021 show that it equals 40.7 for the Philippines, 37.9 for Indonesia, 40.4 for Malaysia, 38.5 for Laos, 36.8 for Vietnam, 42.9 for Myanmar and 36.6 for Brunei,
“It means that to some extent, people need credit products because of issues with personal income and savings,” the analysts added.
Robocash Group is a group of companies, which provides FinTech services in Asia and Europe.
Founded in 2013, the group focuses on providing financial solutions for the underserved by the traditional banking system.
The study covered Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Brunei.
It was based on monthly data from Google Ads for the period from January 2020 to April 2023.
In total, it used 88 combinations of keywords related to lending.
All data were grouped in bigger categories such as auto and motorcycle loan, salary loan, home loan, education loan, credit card, instalment loan, online loan and others.
Interest in lending products in SEA has risen by 15 percent since 2020, says Robocash