Opening a loan service Conpay.ru

Having passed through fire, water and copper pipes, having filled our cones on the pitfalls and having gained invaluable experience in raising the Internet project from zero to one point, we announce the opening of the loan service Conpay.ru .

Prologue

Almost half a year ago, on September 3, 2011, we began developing the Conpay.ru credit service. The task assigned to the team was defined very simply: to enable online store buyers to purchase goods on credit . But, despite the simplicity in the definition of this task, to solve it, we had to fall out of normal life for half a year and headlong into the muddy water of financial startups. At the start of the project, the team consisted of only 3 people: one and a half programmers and one and a half managers. Nevertheless, even having understood the complexity of the task and the limitedness of our own resources, we continued to work on enthusiasm and inspiration (and vigorous books such as Fried and Kawasaki). And finally, after several months of work and tests, we managed to start the service.

First, we created a really working and proven model of interaction with banks and stores. It is difficult to convey what it cost us - very little is said about this in this article.
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Secondly, we wrote the credit service itself. Now this is really a convenient and useful thing. In addition to the button "Buy on credit", it includes 4 applications.

The first application: it is a credit service for the seller (online store), which allows not only placing a button on the site, but also managing credit purchases, loan applications, delivery of credit contracts, customer contacts, loan products, etc.

The second application: loan calculator is a convenient and visual service for choosing a profitable loan. It is the loan calculator that opens the user by clicking on the "Buy on Credit" button on the online store website.

The third application: a personal account of the buyer, where he can get information about his applications and credits. Here, the buyer enters their personal data and confirms the consent to issue a loan.

And finally, the fourth application is the admin panel for managing this entire system.

Model

When we first started developing and wrote about it in blogs and on Habré, several dozens of not very large stores showed moderate interest in us. Unfortunately, they had to wait half a year until our service started working, and some of them did not wait. Then, at the very beginning of work, we managed to reach the right people in two banks, two more representatives of other banks turned out to be regular readers of Habr and contacted us after the first publication about the idea of ​​service (thank you, Habrahabr - for reaching out to bankers press releases or newsletters would be impossible).

Everyone's mood was enthusiastic. The store owners believed that the amount of loans issued for their goods would soon go to their accounts, and they would only have to calculate the tenth shares in the sales growth indicators. Representatives of banks were waiting for millions of applications from us, from which it would be possible to choose bona fide borrowers and sell them loans at 90% per annum. It turned out that everything is not so simple. It turned out that everything is very difficult.

The scheme of our service at the moment is as follows:

0. We set the code of the “Buy on Credit” button on the store website (on the product pages, product categories and on the payment method selection page)

1. The buyer clicks the "buy on credit" button on the store's website, selects the appropriate loan in the loan calculator and sends an application for a loan in the buyer's account

2. The application, together with information about the product, the store and the loan conditions chosen by the buyer, is transmitted to the banks specified by the buyer

3. In case of approval of the application by one or several banks, the buyer chooses one any positive decision and confirms his agreement to grant the loan.

4. A notice of approval of the loan comes to the seller’s personal account, it is proposed to choose the method of delivery of the goods and the contract, the loan agreement is loaded and printed.

5. The goods are delivered to the buyer along with the loan agreement. The buyer presents a passport for verification, puts the signature in the contract. The signed contract is returned to the store.

6. The signed loan agreement is delivered to the bank branch. The loan amount is transferred to the store account. Everyone is happy.

Here we can highlight 4 main topics that we had to break our head to start working according to the scheme described above.

Treaties

First, it is a contractual basis. It turned out to be very difficult to legally formalize the scheme of interaction between the bank, the store and our service. To do this, we had to hold more than 50 meetings with representatives of banks, write and send more than 100 official letters, hire our own lawyer (thank God, he turned out to be a good guy), prepare and not agree a few dozen versions of treaties, acts and additional agreements. But in the end, we still achieved our goal. At the moment we have a fully working and detailed procedural model describing the scheme of the service operation by clicking the button “buy on credit” until the goods are delivered to the buyer and the loan amount is transferred to the store account. If anyone is so interested that they want to read these contracts, write me about it by mail and I will send them to you (unfortunately I can’t promise to read them).

Technology

The next topic is a technical solution that allows you to send and receive data from partner banks, each of which has its own technical regulations for receiving and processing loan applications. It makes no sense to dissemble - this task was not the most difficult. In general, having worked with banks, I discovered, not without surprise, that the level of development of their technologies on the Web is 5 years behind current standards. Nevertheless, I had to think carefully about the protection of personal data and the reliability of the authorization process of the buyer and the store.

Cost of

The third topic is the commercial terms of cooperation. Having lived in debt for six months, we wanted to believe in the future millions, at least of our own, Russian rubles. It turned out that it was not worth believing in them. In all matters relating to money, we had to be guided, above all, by the interests of buyers and sellers (owners of online stores). As a result, it was even more difficult to get something from banks than from shops.

But thanks to the stubbornness of this strategy, we managed to achieve 2 important concessions from banks. The first and main one is the absence of any commissions for the store and the buyer. Simply put, we do not take anything from stores or from buyers. So, our service can be called completely free without any guile. The second concession from banks is credit products. We managed to convince banks that the buyer on the Internet, to put it mildly, is not ready to overpay 90% per annum.

Of course, the bank independently determines the set of credit products offered in each particular store (as you understand, you cannot buy a phone or laptop with a loan for furniture or building materials). Nevertheless, we have achieved that the majority of these credit products fall into the category of low-income and middle-income ones, that is, the effective interest rate ranges from 20% to 50% per annum.

Logistics

The fourth topic was the most difficult. It concerns the delivery of the loan agreement to the buyer. Modern banking technologies, unfortunately, do not allow remote client identification. The digital signature will not come to the masses soon (and in Russia, most likely, never). Therefore, in order to issue a loan, the borrower must be seen in person (by the way, I still do not understand why there is no need to issue a credit card). And if you force a client to go to the bank, the whole point of our service is lost. The only solution is to deliver the loan agreement to the home buyer.

But the fact is that none of the banks we negotiated with agreed to use our own logistics to deliver the loan agreement to the buyer for signature. The problem is that the right to deliver the contract to the buyer can only be accredited by a person (a person who has been trained in the bank and has the appropriate status and authority from the bank). This is due primarily to the need to verify passport data and the appearance of the buyer. In addition, the bank indicated exactly the person (seller, forwarder or courier) who signs the contract.

Since we are going to serve customers all over Russia, we cannot limit ourselves to our own courier service. And at the moment we have no money for its creation. Nevertheless, we still found a solution: this is the delivery of a loan agreement with the goods. We managed to solve the issue of vesting the seller, courier or freight forwarder with banks as follows: the owner or representative of the store sends to the bank the passport and contact details of those who will be engaged in the delivery of goods sold on credit. This can be either the store’s own couriers, or representatives of courier services. The bank, independently and at its own expense, contacts them, invites to the bank branch, conducts training (it takes no more than 1 hour) and gives the necessary powers. Although training is a very conditional name for this process. In fact, the bank security officer in a joking manner tells the couriers what awaits them if they conceive to throw the bank in any way. I myself listened. Very informative.

Other difficulties

At the moment, the main difficulties we have with finding partners. Moreover, these difficulties are not connected with the lack of interest in the service on their part (there is interest, sometimes even too much), but with an elementary lack of resources for marketing and sales.

Of course, the largest retail chains and the most popular stores are of the greatest interest to banks. But in order to reach out to decision makers in these organizations, we need to jump over our heads. And as often happens in countries with low average annual temperature, it is far from a fact that the decision maker will be guided by the interests of the company, and not by their own.

Restraint of interest of banks is easier to explain. While we have only a few dozen small stores behind us, they are interested in nothing more than a regular retail outlet with average traffic. Therefore, in order to reach out to other banks, we need large stores and retail chains. And then see the previous paragraph.

Epilogue

In conclusion, there are some lyrics: we want to create a credit trading platform in the form of an aggregator of trade offers from online stores connected to a credit service. It will be a huge online store where everything can be bought on credit.

We also want to try to sell credit products for education, health, tourism and recreation, etc., on the Internet ... That is, in order to connect to the Conpay.ru network, it is not necessary to be an online store. And even your site is optional (if it is very necessary, you can always do it). It is only important to have a product or service that will be in demand and attract buyers.

We want to make a separate service for the B2B market. There, the buying process is much more complicated, there is a specific workflow, leasing companies work instead of banks, the cost of the attracted client is much higher and there are many other features. By the way, B2B companies themselves are interested in the possibility of screwing an analog of our service to their business, so there is definitely interest in B2B services.

Well, the last is offline. Theoretically, we can replace with one netbook a dozen credit inspectors occupying a place in the sales area. Simply put, for a point of sale (without a website or with a website without an online store), our service can also be useful.

In general, the opening of the service is certainly a significant event, but it is already clear that we will finish it forever.

UPD : The discovery actually happened yesterday, but due to my stupidity I threw my advertising and advertizing topic into the thematic blog “E-commerce” and for this I was immediately transferred to read-only mode (read banned) for 1000 days. But Habr seems to have forgiven me and sent an invite, for which he thanks a lot.