How a Leading Indian Lender Uses Alternative Credit Data to Redefine Risk Assessment

In today’s fast-changing financial landscape, legacy scoring systems often fall short when evaluating new-to-credit (NTC) and thin-file consumers. One of India’s most innovative lenders — a digital-first company focused on retail credit and financial inclusion — is taking a different approach, leveraging Mobilewalla’s LendBetter to build more dynamic, data-rich, and responsible credit strategies with alternative credit data. We spoke with their Technical Architect and Lead Data Scientist to understand how they’re using various technologies to unlock next-generation risk assessment.

First of all, what is LendBetter?

LendBetter is a privacy-compliant consumer intelligence solution that delivers, in real-time, over 200 predictive features and attributes drawn from device and behavioral data. Designed to enrich credit profiles, detect fraud, and improve acquisition outcomes, it empowers lenders to make smarter, more inclusive decisions — especially for new-to-credit and thin-file consumers.

Unlocking Access: Enriching Profiles for the Underserved

“The overarching benefit of LendBetter is profile enrichment for people for whom traditional data is not available.”

One of the biggest challenges in retail lending is dealing with consumers who lack traditional credit histories. LendBetter helps bridge this gap through anonymized, privacy-compliant enrichment with its 200+ predictive data features spanning nine categories, covering all aspects of device and consumer intelligence. This enrichment is particularly valuable for new-to-credit and thin-file applicants, allowing the lender to serve more borrowers without compromising on risk controls.

Smarter Campaign Targeting for Better Acquisition

“Why spend on reaching everyone when you can identify more creditworthy customers right at the start?”

The benefits of LendBetter extend to the top of the funnel as well. By using LendBetter’s segmentation and profiling tools, this lender has:

• Optimized campaign spend
• Improved the quality of newly acquired customers
• Enhanced portfolio performance through better segmentation and targeting
  
  

Through device and behavioral data, the team can classify prospects as more or less attractive, then activate tailored outreach strategies, including the most effective channels for each segment.

Stronger Risk Models, Less Fraud, More Inclusion

“Any kind of customer that lands on our platform, we are now able to underwrite them with greater confidence.”

The impact of LendBetter has been particularly visible in three key areas of risk decisioning:

Better Stratification of New-to-Credit Users
LendBetter increases visibility into previously opaque segments, enabling more granular risk tiers.

Reduced Information Asymmetry
LendBetter supplements limited applicant data with over 200 predictive features, giving deeper visibility into risk profiles and enabling more confident, data-driven underwriting decisions.

Early Fraud Detection
Behavioral signals and device intelligence have enabled fraudulent application detection at the entry point, helping reduce potential financial losses.

From Static Models to Dynamic Risk Intelligence

“Our goal was to move beyond traditional, static credit models, and to build real-time, adaptive systems that learn and evolve with every data point.”

By integrating LendBetter into their decisioning workflows, the lender has enabled a shift to dynamic, real-time risk modeling. These systems aren’t just more responsive - they improve over time, ingesting new data points to continually refine customer profiles and risk scores.

Outcome: Responsible Growth Without Compromise

“Data sources like LendBetter are essential for lenders who want to be innovative, scalable, and privacy-compliant.”

By integrating LendBetter into their underwriting and marketing stack, the lender has seen clear improvements in model performance, especially for segments that were previously underserved or invisible. The result? A more inclusive lending model that enables responsible credit disbursal, without sacrificing asset quality.

Ready to Modernize Your Credit Decisioning?

Discover how LendBetter’s robust alternative credit data can help you enrich NTC and thin-file profiles, detect fraud early, and improve acquisition efficiency – responsibly and at scale.

Book a meeting with our team to see how LendBetter can improve your data stack.