By: James Williams

Instant lending is one of the fastest-growing segments of global fintech, where digital services serve millions of people every month, providing access to money faster than banking pipelines. 

Our hero is Aleksei Eroshenko, a fintech entrepreneur and CEO with more than a decade of experience who has gone from a Russian microfinance platform to an international network of services in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. His companies operate in Vietnam, Mexico, Nigeria, and India, generating significant annual revenue. Today, we are talking about the architecture of this path, strategies for entering new markets, building credit pipelines, and the role of an entrepreneur who grows a business faster than many states adapt regulations.

Q. Aleksei, you came to fintech not as a theorist, but as a person who wrote the system himself and tested models on the live market. How did your journey begin?

We launched our first fintech project in 2013 in Russia. It was an agency company that worked in conjunction with government contractors and banks. According to 44-FZ, suppliers needed bank guarantees, and we provided them with a way to obtain them, from a set of documents to communication with the bank. Later, we developed our own CRM to automate incoming traffic, unboarding, mailing lists, and application processing. It was the first product that we created completely from scratch, and it was he who laid the technological foundation for everything that happened next.

Q. At what point did you get the idea to switch to the quick loans segment?

We saw the need in the market. Clients needed not only an assurance, but also a turnover, quick loans to participate in auctions. We got an MFO license, first we lent to legal entities, and later, we started working with physicists. It was impossible to scale on third-party solutions, the code was not ours, the core was closed, and the logic was cheap. We had to rewrite everything: for a year and a half, we built our own loan pipeline, which automated the full cycle from application to collection. And that’s when we realized for the first time that we were really ready to scale.

Q. When did the business go from local to international?

The decision was made at a time when the Russian market stopped providing the required growth rate. The pandemic pushed for diversification; we wanted foreign exchange earnings and markets with growing economies. The countries were assessed according to three parameters: population size, culture of using microloans, and regulatory barriers. Vietnam was chosen first: low entry threshold, fast startup, clear economy. Eight months after entering, we issued the first loan. Today, it is the top 2 services in the country with an audience of about 1.5 million users per month.

Q. But any ceiling is reached sooner or later. What was the next growth point?

When you’re leading the market, you inevitably run into traffic. Even a country with a population of 100+ million has a limit. That’s why we switched to animating the model and started scaling to new countries. We are currently operating profitably in Vietnam, growing in Mexico and Nigeria, and in India at the final stage.  We have already acquired a financial institution in India, and we are waiting for the approval of the Central Bank. We plan to expand to cover 10-12 major markets over a 3-5-year horizon.

Q. Your business handles hundreds of thousands of credit transactions every month. What does the infrastructure that holds such volumes look like?

Technology is saving us. Singapore-based Sidnacture owns the IP core and is responsible for the development. There is a Millworks holding company that manages local licenses. There are 200+ employees inside, distributed by product, risk, and legal blocks. We built the system like a bank, only faster. Decisions are verified in seconds, scoring is based on dozens of behavioral patterns, and the collection process is automated. It is speed that is the main asset in the instant lending market.

Q. You position yourself as the Head of Growth. What does growth mean to you?

Growth is not just an increase in output or geography. It’s a search for new meanings. My role today is to see where we can be in three years, and to get the company there before the rest. Specifically, we need investments of approximately $150 million to support the portfolio in new countries and accelerate expansion. The current revenue is about $170 million, but we can grow 3-5 times within two years — this is realistic math.

Q. To summarize 10 years of experience, what has fintech taught you?

The fact that speed is more important than perfection. The product can be improved endlessly, but the market lives in cycles, and you have succeeded or not. Secondly, international markets are more complicated, but also cleaner in terms of opportunities: if you build an honest model, do not deceive the client, do not try to push the regulator, you grow. The third is scaling; it’s not about geography, but about the ability of the system to work without your personal involvement. Today, I can drop out of the operating system for a month, but the business will not stop. It once seemed like a fantasy.

Q. Which market do you consider to be the next point of strength?

India is the biggest challenge and the biggest prospect. Then, Spain, an interesting European hub, is where microcredit is only generating a new wave of demand. And, of course, Africa: Nigeria is already showing excellent dynamics, and South Africa is the next step. Africa has a young population and many people who are not involved in the banking system, which means that the demand for fast financial instruments will only grow.

Q. And the last question. What motivates you not to stop the expansion?

The ability to build a system that works for millions of people. Fintech is about access to finance, and access is a growth tool for a country, a business, or an individual. If you know how to create such a tool, it’s impossible to stop. I want to keep going until the new markets run out.