A practical playbook on pre-approval UX, borrower-health guardrails and regulatory-first scaling, based on ROSHI’s experience.
Suppose you’re building a lending marketplace in emerging markets. In that case, this guide shows how to get users to a credible first offer in under two minutes with minimal data entry, while embedding ability-to-repay checks that protect customers even at the cost of short-term conversion.
We also cover why launching in a stringent, innovation-friendly jurisdiction (like Singapore) can de-risk expansion to higher-growth but less predictable markets. Each lesson pairs simple process changes with concrete KPIs, risks, and trade-offs so teams can copy what works, avoid what doesn’t, and scale responsibly from day one.
Lesson 1: Minimize Data Entry to Cut Abandonment (Target < 2 mins to First Offer)
ROSHI began with a frustration shared by millions of borrowers in Southeast Asia: the slow, confusing and often unfair process of applying for a loan.
In many markets, people still need to fill out long forms across multiple lender websites, upload documents multiple times, and wait for days before receiving a single response.
Worse, every new application risks lowering their credit score. The team behind ROSHI aimed to resolve this friction by building a platform that was capable of providing personalized, vetted offers in seconds without needing to utilize much information.
Their concept was quite simple: less typing, faster trust.
Process Details Any Fintech Could Try
- Input trimming: keep the initial form as minimal as possible. ROSHI reduced its required fields to three —income band, employment type, and postcode —enough to provide an indicative rate without forcing users to overshare.
- Soft-check gating: instead of performing hard credit checks immediately, the platform runs a “soft” inquiry first to estimate loan eligibility.
- This allows users to compare ranges safely without hurting their scores.
- Lender-side SLAs: ROSHI’s partner lenders agree to service-level targets, such as responding within 90 seconds of an application being submitted.
These changes dramatically reduced friction, improving both completion and satisfaction rates.
Example KPI: average time-to-first-offer under 120 seconds; form abandonment rate under 20 per cent.
Risks & Trade-offs: reducing input data may make lender models less precise, and some financial institutions hesitate to accept soft checks as valid pre-screening tools. However, the payoff is clear: a smoother experience that keeps borrowers engaged.
Lesson 2: Add Ability-to-Repay Checks Early, Even When It Lowers Short-Term Conversion
While faster access is valuable, speed means little without responsibility.
ROSHI’s co-founder, Said Betmurzaev, who fled Chechnya with his family before settling in Belgium, saw how access to credit could both enable and endanger families. His personal experience shaped ROSHI’s belief that ethical lending must be built into the algorithm, not added later as a compliance measure.
ROSHI's matching engine requires lightweight "affordability" checks before presenting any offers on-screen. The system ensures that a borrower never sees loans they will not reasonably be able to repay, even if that means fewer instant matches.
How It’s Operationalized
- Income-based caps: the platform automatically suppresses offers that exceed roughly 35–45 per cent of a borrower’s stated monthly income.
- Affordability indicators: visual cues, like color-coded repayment bars, show how much strain a given loan might place on the user’s budget.
- Stress testing: borrowers can adjust variables such as income or interest rate to see how payments would change in different scenarios.
“Financial systems often overlook those who need them most,” says Betmurzaev. “We wanted to flip that script and make finance genuinely empowering.”
External Perspective: According to regional credit advisors, embedding affordability checks early helps reduce default and complaint rates, thereby attracting responsible lenders. This mirrors trends in Europe and the US, where regulators are increasingly promoting “ability-to-repay” principles.
Example KPI: on-time repayment rate above 90 per cent; complaint rate below 2 per 1,000 applications.
Risks & Trade-offs: tightening pre-approval filters can reduce funded volumes by 10–20 per cent in the early stages. Some lenders may view the approach as overly conservative. Yet over time, it strengthens portfolio quality and customer loyalty, a trade worth making.
Lesson 3: Use a Regulatory-First Launch Market to De-Risk Expansion
ROSHI’s other co-founder Amir Nada, who has Austrian and Egyptian roots and built his career in global marketing with Google and Omnicom, understood that credibility is earned through compliance.
When ROSHI launched, the team deliberately chose Singapore as its first market because of its strong regulatory framework and openness to innovation. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) offers clear rules on data privacy, credit scoring and lender conduct.
For a fintech startup, this clarity reduces ambiguity and prevents expensive reworks later when expanding to neighboring countries.
Implementation Steps
- Data governance from day one: design data-consent, encryption and audit mechanisms that meet MAS-level standards.
- Regulatory sandbox testing: launch initial product versions under limited supervision to validate UX and risk controls.
- Replication playbook: once compliant, reuse documentation and compliance frameworks for new markets such as Vietnam, Indonesia, or the Philippines.
Example KPI: Partner-activation time under 30 days; compliance issues one or fewer per quarter.
Risks & Trade-offs: Regulatory-first markets like Singapore can slow experimentation because every change requires more scrutiny. However, the result is a stable foundation that scales easily into countries with lighter oversight. Lenders also view partnerships from such ecosystems as more trustworthy, accelerating future integrations.
What We’d Copy / What We’d Change
Copy
- The soft-check UX that lets borrowers see pre-approved ranges without harming their credit scores.
- The integration of ethical guardrails that prevent unaffordable offers from ever appearing.
Change
- Introduce simultaneous counter-offers from multiple lenders to foster competition.
- Include a repayment-stress visualization in the quote flow so users can test different payment scenarios.
Disclosure & Context
ROSHI - Vay tiền online is a digital lending marketplace operating in Singapore and Vietnam, connecting individuals and small businesses with banks and alternative lenders. Its platform allows users to compare and apply for quick cash loans, personal loans, mortgages and SME credit options.
This article was written using materials submitted by company representatives and adapted for educational and editorial purposes.
The lessons and metrics provided are examples intended to help other fintech founders improve transparency, borrower outcomes, and operational resilience.