Overview

Azentio Software, based in Singapore, has strong industry experience and a series of software products that span the banking, insurance, asset management, and ERP industries. It primarily serves BFSI customers with core software and SMB firms with ERP solutions throughout the Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific, and India, and has over 800 customers in over 65 countries (as of May 2022), as well as offices in 12 countries.

Emkan Finance is an omnichannel fintech company that provides digital finance solutions to Saudi citizens seeking personal and consumer loans. It is fully owned by Al Rajhi Bank, one of the world’s largest banks, and operates under the authority and supervision of the Saudi Central Bank, providing solutions that are compliant with Islamic law.

Emkan required an automated solution to provide end customers with a positive experience and disburse their loan requests within minutes. The objective was to enable end customers to execute a self/assisted loan journey powered by API connectors which auto populates data from various sources, minimizing customer data capture points and assisting the decisioning tool with the right set of data points for making quick and precise decisions. Following the principles of Open Banking, these APIs were also exposed to their parent bank wherein they use these data points to generate more leads and other potential business opportunities for Emkan.

The unique proposition of the Universal Lending Solution (ULS) is that the entire digital lending journey is driven by customers/prospects, with no dependence on the financing company. The system is enabled to analyze the risk profile of the customer and based on financing company policies it automatically refers the application for underwriting wherever required.

Some other features of the solution include:

• Self-onboarding
• Two-factor authentication
• DBR Analysis using Bureau Data – Qarar
• Digital Signing of Documents with EMDHA and PN Signing with Nafith
• SIMAH upload and scoring engine

Implementation Process

The project team consisted of an implementation head, a project manager, a principal solution architect, and a business analyst. The project lasted five months and went live in September 2021.

Online integrations were carried out with GL, AML, and regulatory interfaces with over fifty touchpoints. The availability of ready API connectors helped to deliver the project along with the client’s data migration. While the implementation was done for retail finance, the financing company and its parent bank can consume these APIs for different product lines based on their product strategy and reduce their overall go-to-market time.

Due to the pandemic, go-live with more than twelve interfaces was achieved completely offshore.

Benefits Achieved

• Streamlined and automated business processes
• Enhanced customer experience
• Launch of new Islamic line of business
• 100,000 applications received shortly post go-live

Conclusion

Emkan’s decision to partner with Azentio for Kastle ULS helped them considerably improve business processes, giving them an edge and accelerating growth by helping customers gain access to loans quicker.

Key Facts

• Financial Institution: Emkan Finance
• Headquarters: Riyadh
• Supplier: Azentio Software
• Solution: Kastle Universal Lending Solution
• Timeline: 5 months with go-live in Sep 2021