The non-bank lending industry, comprising licensed money lenders, pawnshops, and used car dealers, often operates on paper ledgers and Excel sheets. Johnny Tin, a former banking tech consultant, left his 9-to-5 to change that.

He joins us to discuss Arkmind, his company attempting to digitalise this unglamorous sector. We explore how Arkmind bootstrapped its way to RM1 million in annual revenue, the impact of the Consumer Credit Act, and how they are helping traditional lenders use AI to approve loans in hours instead of days.

We discuss:

• Why non-bank lenders are still stuck on paper and physical ledgers.

• Building an end-to-end digital lending system, from licensing to collection.

• Bootstrapping from RM100k and pivoting from project fees to SaaS.

• How Arkmind uses client data to build custom AI credit scoring engines.

• Targeting 40% annual growth and expanding into Islamic loans and BNPL.