It can be said that Jeitto, dedicated mainly to credit for classes C and D, has a bit of post-Cold War Russia and Nigeria in the 2010s. About to expand its business to class B and the health financing segment, the company expects revenues of close to R$800 million by the end of 2025.
When he founded the company in 2015, Fernando Silva had just launched his second operation of a financial institution in emerging markets. After a career in the financial market that began in Brazil and with stints in Portugal and Spain, he received the invitation to set up from scratch the operation of the Renaissance Credit bank, one of the largest in Russia in 2003, ranking among the three largest credit players in the country in 2009, when he left the company. In 2012, he embarked on a new venture: commissioned to set up the first financial company in Nigeria.
“And I came from this world of credit, I’m very used to countries with more complicated, more emerging economies and with a very vulnerable public”, says the company’s CEO and founder, Silva. That’s what attracted him back to Brazil to found Jeitto. And despite the adventures outside the country, part of the idea for the company’s business model came straight from the center of São Paulo, in the form of the “pastinhas”.
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“Pastinhas were these agents who were in Praça da Sé or Largo 13 de Maio, at public transport stops. He was there with his briefcase offering credit”, he says. When someone looked for these agents looking for credit, they were taken to a branch of a credit institution in the region.
“The client was looking for R$200, if he was a good client without being negative, he would leave with R$2,000 contracted to pay in 36 months with high interest, a very large debt that he didn’t need”, he says. “So, he would spend R$200 to pay the emergency bill there, to survive the month, but he would end up with R$1,800, which he would spend on a bunch of things he didn’t need, and he would be left with a debt to pay.”
How Jeitto works
Jeitto’s bet is to move away from this “bipolar” method: it uses data from telephone usage to create a decision engine for credit release. The model worked even with the popularization of applications such as WhatsApp and data recording on cell phones.
The strategy is to lend values. Today, Jeitto’s credit engine evaluates 2,000 data points to release credit that does not exceed R$3,000, the maximum value for the personal loan product. In the case of the so-called monthly digital credit, the value does not exceed R$500. The products range from personal credit to payroll loans.
In 2025, the company projects to reach close to R$800 million in revenue while the company is already looking at the possibility of new avenues of growth in the coming years.
“The dental treatment part is very important and we’re going to start working with bigger tickets. It’s going a little above C naturally. There’s already a B- audience. As we implement products we’re going a little further, but our vocation is classes C and D”, says Silva.
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According to the company’s calculations, the demand for credit for treatments such as procedures, implants and dental treatments varies from R$5,000 to R$7,000 and it should be launched in the first quarter.
