Habit Factory Selected for the Ministry of SMEs and Startups' 'Unicorn Bridge' Program... "The Only Fintech Company Chosen"

"AI-Based Platform Lending:
Shortened Processing Time and Enhanced Interest Rate Competitiveness"

Habit Factory, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based fintech company, announced on June 24 that it has been selected as a finalist for the 'Unicorn Bridge' program organized by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups.

The Unicorn Bridge program provides government support of up to 1.6 billion won and special guarantees from the Korea Technology Finance Corporation of up to 20 billion won to startups with the potential to grow into global unicorns valued at 1 trillion won or more. The evaluation is based on factors such as the amount of investment attracted, the trend of corporate value growth, and technology assessment ratings.

The company explained that its selection was positively influenced by its advanced technology, which applies AI throughout the loan screening process to digitize complex manual procedures. Habit Factory has worked to localize its standardized and automated AI-based model, which has already been validated in the Korean insurance market, for the U.S. mortgage market. The company cited as a key achievement its reduction of the average loan processing period from over 45 days to just 7 days, thereby improving work efficiency and customer experience.

Habit Factory has also secured competitiveness by utilizing its AI system to significantly reduce operating costs and offer interest rates up to 1 percentage point lower than major local financial institutions. Recently, it integrated real estate listings and regional risk assessments into its proprietary service, Loaning AI, to support the overall home-buying process.

Since last year, Habit Factory has focused on acquiring customers through real estate agents. To this end, the company has developed several features to support agents' work. In particular, a dedicated monitoring system allows agents to manage each client's loan progress in real time, enhancing efficiency. The company plans to accelerate the expansion of its partner network and strengthen its platform's competitiveness.

Yoonho Jung, Co-CEO of Habit Factory, said, "Based on this support, we plan to expand into a specialized mortgage lending bank and continue our growth as a K-fintech company that attracts global attention in the future."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.