Financial service providers are increasingly incorporating advanced analytics to make informed decisions and better serve their customers. Managing large and complex external databases requires significant engineering and data analytics resources to access, standardize, and analyze information, creating high-cost barriers. It’s particularly challenging for providers to unlock data that would help them understand and serve customers who lack credit histories, many of whom are small businesses and individuals from underserved communities.

Moffin, a leader in software and data integration, eliminates these barriers by allowing financial providers and other companies to seamlessly ingest and utilize data from external data providers without the need for costly in-house resources. To do this, Moffin integrates multiple data sources into a unified system, making it easier for financial institutions to obtain the data they need in the best format for their internal systems. Financial institutions in Mexico rely on resource-intensive processes to screen and understand their customers. As they accelerate adoption of advanced analytics and artificial intelligence, we believe that the need to efficiently manage information will continue to grow. Moffin helps alleviate the burden of incorporating and analyzing additional data sources, enabling financial institutions to focus on their core mission: serving their customers.

Accion Venture Lab is proud to partner with the Moffin founding team as they continue to build an integration platform that helps companies in Mexico understand their customers. We’re excited to invest in Moffin as they:

Give financial institutions the tools to reach unbanked customers

Traditionally, financial institutions have relied on centralized and readily available databases, like credit bureaus, to assess customers’ creditworthiness. Since these databases rely on existing credit histories, they favor individuals and businesses that have received credit in the past. This poses a problem for people who have no or insufficient credit history, as financial service providers cannot understand their risk profile clearly, and they inevitably fail the approval criteria to access financial services.

Fortunately, other types of information, such as tax information or alternative data models, can provide insights into underserved customers. However, creating a more robust data profile for customers is costly for financial institutions. They must source new types of information from external providers, maintain direct connections with each external database, and harmonize the data utilized in internal models. The financial and technical barriers to building these solutions in-house deter financial providers from incorporating new information and hinder their ability to fully understand their customers.

Moffin’s infrastructure aims to solve this problem by making data access and usage seamless, saving money and time. This means that financial institutions can create more robust data profiles for end customers and design processes and products that are built for customers that they can finally understand. By democratizing access to data, we believe that Moffin can help financial service providers better serve their customers at scale.

Provide solutions to improve the data funnel of clients

Moffin’s initial proposition to access data in a standardized format has resonated with their financial provider clients, shown by their consistent growth in both the number of active users and the volume of data processed. Once onboarded onto the platform, Moffin helps companies improve their use of data through a suite of value-added services. The team has created a set of evaluation and insights tools that help financial institutions make better decisions and automate processes that would otherwise overburden their engineering and data analytics teams. For example, clients can set up automatic rules-based validations against the obtained data and schedule recurring information checks for active customers.

Today, we have already seen how these tools impact the work being done by their customers. In conversations with an existing client, a lender working in the consumer credit space, the client detailed how leveraging Moffin allowed them to create a pre-screen phase for potential customers. This allowed them to qualify leads using a reduced set of data points instead of manually choosing customers and requesting a full credit report on them. As a result, they have been able to increase the number of customers they serve. They’re now working with Moffin to design new data requirements for additional lending products. We are excited by the robust pipeline of additional value-added services under development, and we envision Moffin continuing to grow as a key ally to decision-makers in financial institutions.

Create a more efficient data ecosystem

In addition to a strong value proposition for data consumers, we are confident that Moffin also offers strong incentives to data providers. Many small and medium size companies need quality data sources to serve their end customers better but are usually too small to interact directly with a data provider. As a result, data providers can find value in integrating with Moffin, allowing them to reach these smaller companies and provide data services to a broader pool of clients. We validated this by speaking with some of the leading data providers in Mexico, who confirmed that working with Moffin has already brought in new accounts and increased usage in their existing customer base.

We believe that Moffin can play a critical role in creating a more bountiful data ecosystem, where the value of the information gathered by data providers can be effectively used by companies to meet the needs of their end customers. This value extends beyond financial institutions. Companies in the real estate, hiring, and supply chain industries, where similar client screening and monitoring levels are needed, also face similar data challenges. Already conducting pilots in these industries, Moffin is equipped to become a key infrastructure layer for companies in Mexico. With its scalable solutions, we believe Moffin can expand beyond Mexico to strengthen the data ecosystem across Latin America and other geographies.

At Accion Venture Lab, we believe that the product-focused team at Moffin is well-positioned to help financial institutions better understand their underserved customer base. The team is led by seasoned operators in the fintech and financial services space, who have witnessed first-hand the challenges of leveraging diverse data sources to build a product. Santiago Aceves brings experience scaling successful startups as part of growth and product teams. He has a deep understanding of client needs and brings a strong vision for the product roadmap. Víctor Díaz, who has an extensive track record as a full-stack engineer, leads Moffin’s efforts to build a technical product that meets the needs of some of the best developer teams in the country. Finally, Nicholas Yepes leads commercial operations for the company, leveraging his experience as a private equity investor focused on financial institutions. We’re proud to support them on their journey as we believe that Moffin is ushering in a new era where companies can make data-driven decisions to understand and serve their clients.