Egypt’s premier financial services firm, Contact Financial Holding, has developed an in-house Artificial Intelligence powered credit investigation system enabling it to stay on top of the changing business landscape. At a time when data analytics has taken the world by storm, the AI credit investigation model is going to keep Contact way ahead of its competitors.
The AI system ensures that no customer data leaves its data center and databases. This feature is crucial given that the firm handles its customers’ sensitive financial information.
The Power of Data
It was in 2006 that Clive Humby said, “Data is the new oil,” but the able leadership of Contact was aware of data’s importance right from its inception in 2001. It has been ingesting and organizing customer data since 2001. And now, after 20 years, the foresight of Contact has paid off.
It is to be noted that the success of any Artificial Intelligence system depends largely on the model that is created with data. Unstructured, messy data would lead to an inefficient model. This is where the financial services company showed its prudence. It did not just collect customers but also made sure that the data was structured, cleansed, and ready to be used.
Managing data is not child’s play. Contact’s leadership knew that from the beginning. In order to manage the ocean of data, the company leveraged a core banking ERP system which enabled it to use data analytics with all the best practices in place.
Highlights of the AI-Based Credit Investigation System
The AI model has been built by Contact with its two decades of customer data. (An AI model is the soul of any AI system. The behavior and success of the latter depend on the model). The initial model had an accuracy of 85% compared to a human credit investigator. Contact improved the system further and increased the accuracy to 93%.
Another noteworthy fact is that an AI system will not work independently. A company that is not built on the foundation of Digital Transformation will not find success in its AI endeavors. Contact knows this. Hence, it has entirely digitized its core system and processes.
IDP, or Intelligent Document Processing, has played a great role in the company’s AI model creation process. In order to judge the creditworthiness of a customer, the AI system needs to scan customers’ documents and match them with the data available in the Egyptian government’s database. The financial services company leveraged IDP and OCR to scan the documents. One leverage that Contact has is that it works with structured data, which is why OCR scanners have zero problems making sense of the data.
Benefits of Contact’s AI-Based Credit Investigation System
With the new system in place, Contact can now leverage almost instant loan approvals much faster. The system has dramatically improved the approval process, which is good news for customers and the employees of Contact alike.
The AI-based loan approval system will have no bias while approving or rejecting any loan request. Every decision is made with data and nothing else. This will help Contact Financial Holding adhere to compliance in a much more robust fashion.
Lending-as-a-Service (LaaS)
Now that Contact Financial Holding has automated the loan approval process, other businesses can leverage Contact’s system to offer EMIs and loans while selling their products. A Lebanese dental equipment startup, Toothpick, has connected its system with Contact’s Lending-as-a-Service via the latter’s API. Toothpick can now offer an easy credit facility to its customers. It’s a win-win situation for all three parties involved. Not just API keys; other websites can also integrate Contact’s iFrame to add credit functionality.
Strategic Acquisitions
Contact Financial Holding has made several acquisitions of notable AI and Digital Transformation based IT service companies. It recently acquired Synapse Analytics of Egypt. This company provides a comprehensive data analytics solution that AI models can use to automate work, predict demand, come up with credit scores, and a whole lot of exciting things.
This acquisition has immensely helped Contact in building its in-house AI model. Sa3ar Tech, another company that came up with an AI system that comes up with a near-accurate valuation of used cars, has also been acquired by Contact Financial Holding. This is going to be of immense help for its car-financing arm. The company has also acquired Data Science Solutions to further enhance its data analytics capabilities.
About Contact Financial Holding
Contact Financial Holding is Egypt’s premier non-banking financial company, under which there are a group of companies offering unparalleled services pertaining to financing and insurance.
Established in 2001, Contact Financial Holding has been offering comprehensive credit and financing services while keeping the process simple and painless for mass adoption. The company has been strategically expanding its network of subsidiaries, affiliates, and partners to have a strong footprint across Egypt and provide a wide array of credit services across various niches.
The company provides credit facilities that span across industries. It provides financing services to car buyers and consumer durables customers through Contact Credit. It also serves the real estate vertical with Contact Mortgages. In the commercial financing sector, Contact has its presence via Contact Leasing and Contact Factoring. In the retail world, people can take advantage of Contact’s financing services with Contact Shopping. Contact Financial Holding is also in the insurance business with Sarwa Insurance and Sarwa Life Insurance. In short, Contact Holding is the one-stop for everything related to finance and loan.
Beyond financing services and technologies, what sets Contact apart is its undeterred focus on women’s empowerment. Women’s leadership in the company is 25% of the total Executive Council. Their positions vary from the chairman and managing director to executives and members of boards in various companies and sectors of the Group. Recently, Contact announced its platinum partnership with the National Council for Women to the Women Championship initiative, aligning with the government’s sustainable development strategy 2030 to support and empower women.