Indonesian Neobank Strengthens Thin-File Underwriting With Riskseal

Client’s bio

This client is a fast-growing Indonesian neobank (company name confidential under NDA).

Operating in one of Southeast Asia’s most competitive digital banking markets, the company focuses on rapid customer acquisition and accessible unsecured lending products.

As a fast-growing digital bank, the team focuses on growing revenue, controlling costs, and managing risk effectively.

Challenge

In Indonesia’s competitive digital lending market, margins are highly sensitive to even a 1-2% shift in default rates.

As the neobank scaled rapidly, maintaining portfolio quality and profitability became increasingly challenging. 

The neobank identified three core problems:

#1. Thin-file customers

Between 90 and 97.7 million Indonesians (out of 288 million) have either a thin-file or no credit history.

High-quality local behavioral data is limited, and bureau checks are costly yet often weak for digitally native users. 

As a result, PD uncertainty remained high.

#2. Rising fraud pressure

Synthetic identities increased, while serial defaulters rotated across fintech platforms. Emulator environments and device spoofing were detected during onboarding.

Traditional checks alone were insufficient to clearly separate legitimate thin-file applicants from coordinated fraud.

#3. Portfolio immaturity

Rapid expansion meant limited internal repayment history and underdeveloped behavioral models.

With insufficient historical data, default risk uncertainty remained elevated, complicating growth decisions.

Solution

Neobank risk managers began searching for a vendor that could provide real-time local digital signals with strong coverage across Indonesian applicants.

During evaluation, they found that the provider with the strongest local footprint was RiskSeal.

The neobank integrated RiskSeal into its onboarding and credit decisioning flow, layering its real-time digital signals on top of existing models without replacing traditional tools.

Instead, it enhanced decision precision, particularly for thin-file and bureau-invisible applicants.

Integration was completed in just one business day via API, with no disruption to existing decisioning infrastructure.

Digital identity intelligence

RiskSeal added real-time digital identity signals, including:

• Email age, domain risk, and breach exposure
  
• Phone number tenure and activity signals
  
• Tor browser and proxy detection
  
• Cross-platform identity consistency checks

These signals helped identify synthetic identities, emulator-based onboarding attempts, and serial defaulters earlier in the process.

Local digital footprint signals

To address the shortage of high-quality local data, RiskSeal incorporated Indonesia-relevant digital footprint insights:

• Presence across locally relevant platforms and apps.
  
• Usage patterns across categories such as social media, e-commerce, gambling, education, and services.
  
• Subscription consistency patterns.
  
• Detection of subscription types (free vs. paid tiers), adding further behavioral context.

All signals were delivered in real time and converted into a unified Digital Credit Score.

Results

Within 6 months of deployment, the neobank observed measurable improvements.

Portfolio impact

• 5% Gini uplift on a typical 0.60 model.
• Strongest improvement in thin-file and previously borderline applicants.
• Clearer separation across risk bands.

The biggest breakthrough came from the mid-risk segment. Applicants who previously fell into uncertain gray areas could now be classified more confidently.

Simultaneous gains achieved

According to the neobank’s team, the deployment delivered multiple benefits at once:

• Improved risk assessment accuracy.
• Reduced fraud exposure.
• Lower collection costs due to cleaner portfolios.
• Faster decision-making without operational friction.