Chinese mobile lender WeLab aims for new ways to win its customers

Anthony Kwan | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Simon Loong, founder and chief executive officer of WeLab, speaks during the Rise conference in Hong Kong, China, on Wednesday, July 11, 2018. 

One of China’s major mobile lending platforms, WeLab, plans to diversify its services to meet the changing needs of its customers as they enter into new stages of their lives, said the company’s CEO, Simon Loong.

WeLab, a Hong Kong-based financial technology firm, plans to expand its services after applying for a virtual banking license from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority this year.

In the past, the company only provided its users with lending services but it’s now exploring new opportunities.

“Can we actually with the license, with the technology, offer them other additional financial services and also grow with them throughout their life cycle?” Loong told CNBC at the Hong Kong Fintech week on Wednesday.

Adding new services such as virtual banking to WeLab’s portfolio would help meet different needs of its customers at different points of their lives, Loong said.

The customers at WeLab five years ago were 20 years old, and they may have had needed more lending services at that time, said Loong. Today, the services they need might have changed and evolved to include managing “deposits, transactions, wealth, insurance,” he said.