Tala Secures $150 Million Debt Facility to Enhance Lending Capabilities

Tala has secured a $150 million debt facility to expand what it calls “the world’s most accessible financial services.”

The company will use the proceeds from the facility to support its growing business in Mexico, enhance its lending capabilities and continue delivering data-enabled financial infrastructure, according to a Wednesday (March 19) press release.

Since its launch in 2014, the global financial infrastructure company has delivered over $6 billion in credit to more than 10 million customers across Latin America, Southeast Asia and East Africa, per the release.

“This funding will enable us to further expand our innovative, mobile-first financial platform with a focus on our credit portfolio, while also enabling future financial service options,” Tala CEO and Founder Shivani Siroya said in the release.

The new debt facility, which was provided by global investment management firm Neuberger Berman, is Tala’s largest capital markets transaction to date, per the release.

“This facility is a testament to the confidence that Neuberger Berman has in Tala’s leadership and operational expertise,” Peter Sterling, head of Neuberger Berman’s Specialty Finance group, said in the release. “Tala has demonstrated an impressive track record in delivering innovative financial solutions with deep data insights that sets it apart from existing financial institutions and regional neobanks.”

Tala began operations as an app providing instant credit scoring to individuals across underserved markets where credit bureaus are nonexistent, stretching from Africa to India to the Philippines, Siroya told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster in an interview posted in November 2023.

More recently, the company evolved to cover loan originations, bill pay and other digital services facilitated across its platform, aiding the “great majority” of consumers in its target markets who are unbanked, Siroya said.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have emerged as game-changers in the FinTech landscape, and especially in the emerging market lending space, Tala Chief Business Officer Jori Pearsall told PYMNTS in an interview posted in December 2023.

These technologies are making lending “better, faster, easier” in emerging markets where the complexities of providing real-time, personalized decision-making across diverse languages and cultures pose considerable challenges, especially given the limited data available and often minimal or even nonexistent formal credit histories, Pearsall said.