Carilend Localised Multi Country, Multi Lingual, Multi Currency Lending
Carilend was the first peer to peer lender in the Caribbean, based in Barbados, and ran all of its lending operation on The Madiston Digital Lending Platform. Following new investment, Carilend kicked off its plans to launch in new territories across the region.
Mark Young, CEO, Carilend
The Need
Having successfully built its lending in Barbados, processing USD $24.2 million in loan value terms and over 2500 borrower loans, generating an average return of 8.3% after defaults, for their lenders, Mark Young, CEO of Carilend, looked to expand first into Jamaica. Conscious of the need to keep costs low, Mark wanted to centralise the core lending processes on their already proven Madiston platform. Jamaica was potentially more than five times the size of the Barbadian market, so automation and volume processing would be key.
The Solution
Madiston rolled out their new back office system to Carilend, with enhanced processing capable of managing significant volumes of transactions at speed. The multi-company functionality enabled Barbados and Jamaica to be reported as individual business units or consolidated into one.
Users logging into the Carilend system would automatically be routed through Barbados or Jamaica based upon their settings. The Madiston back office enabled each country to operate with different currencies, language/terminology, regulation, local payment systems, local bank holidays etc, all seamlessly to the user.
The central processing team, based in Barbados, were able to oversee the system for both countries with minimum headcount in Jamaica, managing only the exceptions flagged by the system for attention. Standard controls like dual authorisations, automated reconciliations including client money and audit trails, all ensured that managing two geographic locations would be practical and profitable.
Mark Young, CEO of Carilend, commented on Madiston’s software: “The Madiston Platform has served us well with our first move into a new Caribbean territory. This gives us the confidence to add many more regions over the next few years, in other Caribbean countries and beyond. As our processing is done centrally through the Madiston Platform, it doesn’t matter where we expand geographically because all operations can be carried out remotely. This was particularly invaluable during the pandemic, where Carilend was able to continue lending and borrowing in Barbados and Jamaica throughout the lockdown.”
Carilend has now expanded further, in partnership with Massy Finance, into Trinidad & Tobago. Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago all operate on a single instance of Madiston’s lending technology. Each has different currencies, different banking arrangements, different processes, all managed separately but operating within one platform. Each country offers different lending products too, from institutional lending, peer to peer lending, Buy Now Pay Later loans to salary deducted loans - all available within Madiston’s hyper automated technology.
Multi-company global lending technology
within The Madiston Platform
Tim Simon, CEO, Madiston on the future of cross-border lending: “Global business is a real opportunity in lending and borrowing as cross-border regulatory hurdles are overcome. Just like Carilend can run their Caribbean operations from Barbados, so can other firms looking to expand geographically anywhere in the world. Operations can be centralised or run as completely individual units, the Madiston platform enables different business models to co-exist within the overall system.”
Tim Simon, CEO, Madiston