FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, FINTECH
Globenewswire | May 29, 2023
nCino, Inc. (NASDAQ: NCNO), a pioneer in cloud banking for the global financial services industry, today announced a strategic partnership with Zest AI, the leader in automating underwriting with more accurate and inclusive lending insights, to build an integration into nCino’s Consumer Banking Solution. The integration will enable lenders with streamlined access to cutting-edge consumer credit lending insights to help make efficient, accurate decisions about borrower risk.
Quickly evolving economic conditions require lenders to keep pace with new data, regulatory standards of reporting and underwriting workflows. Lenders have, on average, automated over 50 percent of their underwriting process with Zest AI’s technology, analyzing hundreds of data points in seconds to better determine lending decision outcomes. Through this partnership, lenders gain the ability to quickly respond to shifts in market conditions. This capability helps upkeep borrower risk accuracy and enables lenders to be agile and responsive during fluctuations in the economic cycle.
“The financial services industry is in a new phase of growth as modern technology becomes more accessible to lenders through partnerships like our own with nCino. The future of lending relies on optimizing how we determine an applicant’s credit risk so lenders can give them a faster decision and move them into the next stage of the banking process,” said Zest AI’s Head of Corporate Development, José Valentín.
“Artificial intelligence has the potential to help financial institutions cross the modernization divide by powering more efficient, automated and personalized experiences,” said Justin Norwood, Vice President – Data and AI at nCino. “We’re excited about this partnership with Zest AI and look forward to bolstering our already best-in-class underwriting technology with intelligence that helps financial institutions utilize data for faster and improved decisions.”
This partnership integration spans three consumer portfolios — auto loans, personal loans and credit cards. Zest AI’s connectivity within nCino’s Consumer Banking Solution allows lenders to choose AI-automated underwriting for their portfolios, enabling efficient lending decisions without needing massive IT modernization projects.
As part of the partnership, nCino previously participated in a funding round supporting Zest AI’s ability to expand access to AI-automated credit underwriting for all lenders as more financial institutions look to adopt AI tools to make better credit decisions.
About nCino
nCino (NASDAQ: NCNO) is the worldwide leader in cloud banking. Through its single software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, nCino helps financial institutions serving corporate and commercial, small business, consumer, and mortgage customers modernize and more effectively onboard clients, make loans, manage the loan lifecycle, and open accounts. Transforming how financial institutions operate through innovation, reputation and speed, nCino is partnered with more than 1,850 financial services providers globally. For more information, visit www.ncino.com.
About Zest AI
Zest AI is a tech company on a mission to make fair and transparent credit accessible for everyone. Since 2009, we've worked with financial institutions to provide AI-driven credit solutions to their borrowers. Today we work with all types of lenders — but especially credit unions — to democratize underwriting automation and equitable credit decisioning. Learn more at zest.ai and connect with us on LinkedIn.
Read More
CORE BANKING, FINTECH
PRnewswire | May 30, 2023
Accel-backed finbots.ai, a Singapore headquartered B2B SaaS FinTech today announced signing Sathapana Bank—Cambodia's leading commercial bank—as their latest client. With this, finbots.ai's fast growing client case has extended to 9 countries across APAC and MEA markets.
Sathapana Bank is one of the leading commercial banks in Cambodia with the second largest branch network in the country of over 170 branches across Cambodia. Sathapana Bank offers a wide range of banking and financial services for consumers, businesses, and SMEs.
With this move, Sathapana Bank will be one of the pioneer banks in Cambodia to migrate their credit risk management to an advanced AI-led solution. The pivot to finbots.ai is part of the Bank's strategic investments in digital and business transformation.
With finbots.ai's AI- led credit modelling platform credit, Sathapana Bank will be able to better assess credit worthiness of applicants for personal, home, agriculture, and SME loans, thereby accelerating business growth without increasing risk. Additionally, the bank will be able to build high accuracy Behaviour Scorecards on demand, to manage their portfolios in real-time, allowing them to proactively reward good customers and take mitigating action for risky customers. This will result in lower credit risks, higher approval rates and greater operational efficiency for the Bank's retail and SME business.
Sathapana Bank selected finbots.ai basis an extensive evaluation on the accuracy, time to value and stability of scorecards generated by their AI-led platform, creditX. This included a Proof-of-Concept where the Bank's team built custom scorecards using their own historical data, as well as conducted independent 'out of time' validations of the scorecards.
"As a leading commercial bank, we recognise the value of partnering with innovative companies providing next-generation technologies to provide better credit access to our clients. finbots.ai's solution creditX is a transformative solution that will help us strengthen our credit risk management and enhance our operational efficiency and agility. This is in line with our goal to provide innovative banking solutions to our clients in Cambodia," said Mr. Fung Kai Jin, CEO of Sathapana Bank.
Sanjay Uppal, Founder and CEO of finbots.ai said, "We are proud to make our foray into an exciting market like Cambodia with Sathapana Bank. I am confident that our transformative AI platform will open new opportunities for the Bank across their full credit lifecycle and enable them to profitably grow their lending business with adequate guardrails. We are seeing creditX become a preferred option across markets for Retail and SME banks as well as FinTechs, and this deal is a further reinforcement of our platform's capability to rewrite the credit decisioning playbook for lenders."
finbots.ai has recently successfully completed A.I. Verify pilot, the world's first AI governance testing framework and toolkit developed by Singapore Government's IMDA (Infocomm Media Development Authority) and PDPC (Personal Data Protection Commission). This validated the performance of creditX solution on principles of fair, explainable and trustworthy AI, in an objective and verifiable manner.
About finbots.ai
finbots.ai is an Accel Portfolio FinTech company with a mission to help lenders drive profitable lending and financial inclusion with creditX, our AI-powered platform to rapidly build high accuracy risk scorecards.
creditX is used by lenders across 4 regions, specifically Africa, Middle East, APAC and Australia, and by the full spectrum of lending companies, including digital banks, SME lenders, consumer lenders and Credit Bureaus.
finbots.ai has been recognised among 'Top 10 FinTechs in Singapore' at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) FinTech Awards 2022. The FinTech is also part of PwC's Partner Programme and a Featured Partner for Tata Consultancy Services.
finbots.ai and creditX are ISO ISO27001 certified and have completed AI Verify, the world's first AI Governance testing framework and toolkit developed by Singapore Government's IMDA (Infocomm Media Development Authority) and PDPC (Personal Data Protection Commission).
finbots.ai is headquartered in Singapore and has offices in India (Hyderabad), the United Arab Emirates (Dubai), Indonesia (Jakarta) and Nairobi (Kenya).
Read More
PAYMENTS, FINTECH
Businesswire | May 29, 2023
UniCredit and Mastercard today announce a global expansion of their payment partnership.
The agreement sets the stage for the start of a strong partnership consistent with the UniCredit Unlocked strategy. This is the first time any large commercial bank has put in place a single card multi market strategy of this scale in Europe. It brings together in one agreement UniCredit’s ability to harness the collective weight of 13 banks as one institution with Mastercard’s expertise in the card payment space. The significant broadening of the parties’ relationship will deliver payment innovation and enhanced digital experiences to customers.
This enhanced multi-year partnership provides the necessary resources to achieve a shared ambition to increase the speed of innovation in the payments space and put customers at the center. It enables UniCredit to provide a best in class offering for all its cardholders, delivering a simplified core product proposition, optimized digital experience with a full suite of in-app solutions and the development of a dedicated approach for innovation, increasing payment choice to customers, across multiple payments rails.
Both parties’ commitment to increase their tangible actions across environmental and social sustainability will also be enhanced through this partnership. Insight and resources will be combined with a particular focus on the implementation of new projects on common ESG goals, developing solutions to support empowering communities to progress, fighting climate change with mindful spending choices and the ability to contribute tangibly to environmental goals, integrating donations in the everyday spend.
This agreement is a clear example of the execution of the UniCredit Unlocked plan, uniting 13 banks to deliver value for UniCredit stakeholders in a capital-light manner, taking opportunities from European DNA but working as a unified group. It is the most immediate manifestation of the potential within payments, which UniCredit is focused on to further extract value in terms of product simplification, cost synergies and digital transformation.
The partnership will focus on supporting the delivery of the UniCredit’s strategic priorities. This includes digitalization of payments solutions, offering multi functioning solutions with a fully equipped card. It aligns with UniCredit’s brand attributes to build increased preference and loyalty across the consumer lifecycle, enriching bank wide opportunities thanks to Mastercard’s strong award-winning Priceless brand platform and sponsorship marketing assets.
“This partnership epitomizes the essence of UniCredit Unlocked and our commitment to leverage the full impact of our multi market footprint as one complete offering for the benefit of our clients," said Andrea Orcel, CEO, UniCredit. "Our geographical reach and Mastercard’s expertise in this space enables us to not only streamline our partnerships and contracts, but enhance our digital, security and product offering for all our current and future cardholders. This is a perfect example of the new way of managing projects in UniCredit, bringing benefits to all legal entities in a disciplined way and acting as a single company.”
“UniCredit has been an important partner for many years. Together we have created real solutions that help people and businesses across Europe. This expanded relationship will build on that experience to bring new innovations to UniCredit cardholders,” said Michael Miebach, CEO, Mastercard.
UniCredit Note for Editors
UniCredit is a pan-European Commercial Bank with a unique service offering in Italy, Germany, Central and Eastern Europe. Our purpose is to empower communities to progress, delivering the best-in-class for all stakeholders, unlocking the potential of our clients and our people across Europe. We serve over 15 million customers worldwide. They are at the heart of what we do in all our markets. UniCredit is organized in four core regions and two product factories, Corporate and Individual Solutions. This allows us to be close to our clients and use the scale of the entire Group for developing and offering the best products across all our markets. Digitalisation and our commitment to ESG principles are key enablers for our service. They help us deliver excellence to our stakeholders and creating a sustainable future for our clients, communities and people.
Mastercard Note for Editors
Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart and accessible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments and businesses realize their greatest potential. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all.
Read More