Akulaku
Akulaku is Southeast Asia’s leading tech-fin platform, serving approximately 60 million users across several countries through digital lending and banking, and backed by prestigious investors such as Ant International, MUFG, and SCB. It is the leading digital lender and digital bank in Indonesia, with strong capitalization, delivering profitable, AI driven financial inclusion at scale.
Kilde Score is the platform’s proprietary credit assessment of the borrower, reflecting Kilde’s independent credit view and expressed as a numeric score from worst to best (1.00–5.75). For full details of the credit methodology, including its mapping to a Fitch-style rating equivalent, please refer to this article.
Total value of bonds this borrower has listed on Kilde for investors to fund.
Indonesia
Malaysia
Thailand
Philippines
Regulatory status of the borrower: Licensed if the license is required, or 'Not applicable' if no licence is required in its operating market(s).
Total amount of loans the borrower has issued to its own end customers. Reflects the company's overall lending scale.
Outstanding balance of the borrower’s loan portfolio, net of impairment provisions.
Overview
Background & History
Founded in 2016 in Indonesia, Akulaku started as a digital lender serving credit-invisible and underbanked consumers, and has since grown into a regional tech-fin group operating across Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia.
Business Model & Lines of Business
Akulaku runs a credit-centered ecosystem that monetizes customers across their lifecycle — acquiring them via low-ticket BNPL and scaling them into cash loans, cash installments, and full digital banking. The group operates three core pillars: Digital Lending (BNPL, Cash Loan, Cash Installment), Digital Banking (BNC in Indonesia, Ownbank in the Philippines), and Open Banking / Ecosystem Services.
Key Milestones
The group has reached ~60M total unique users, US$3.4BN in annual loan originations, and ~26% gross profit margin. It became the #1 digital lender and #1 digital bank in Indonesia, launched Ownbank in the Philippines in 2023, secured PayLater cobranding partnerships with TikTok and Lazada, and onboarded tier-1 backers (Ant International, SCB, MUFG).
Management Team & Organization
Led by Founder & CEO William Li (ex-PingAn), Co-founder & CTO Gordon Hu (ex-Oracle/Tencent), and CFO Fan Zhang (ex-Citi FIG), the group runs a lean, decentralized structure — each subsidiary (BNC, Ownbank, AFI) is led by seasoned local banking executives, combining founder-driven strategy with deep in-market expertise.
Financials
Outstanding balance of the borrower’s loan portfolio, net of impairment provisions.
Total income (interest and fee income) generated from the borrower’s lending activities.
Products
Typical contractual tenor of the loans disbursed by the borrower to its end customers.
The effective Annual Percentage Rate of the loan charged by the borrower to its end customers, inclusive of interest and fees.
Typical principal amount disbursed by the borrower to its end customers per loan transaction.
Typical principal amount disbursed by the borrower to its end customers per loan transaction.
Typical principal amount disbursed by the borrower to its end customers per loan transaction.
Market Data
According to Fitch Rating
Annualised
Annualised