Embracing Technology: Pepper Advantage's Strategic Use of AI to Enhance Borrower Outcomes

At Pepper Advantage, we are committed to being at the forefront of integrating Artificial Intelligence into financial services, with a clear vision to enhance borrower experiences. While our journey with AI is still evolving, our commitment to leveraging the technology is dynamic and unwavering. This blog explores how our AI initiatives, particularly in the UK and India, are set to revolutionize our approach to loan servicing and lending. Our focus remains steadfast on aligning with our core values, commitment to borrowers, and adherence to regulatory standards, ensuring a fair and responsible use of AI that prioritises consumer interests.

AI in Loan Servicing: Improving Borrower Outcomes

AI is set to transform our loan servicing support for borrowers, equipping our customer support teams with more comprehensive, precise, and data-driven information. We are looking to enhance our call centre processes, which currently involve manual elements, by exploring innovative ways to improve the customer service experience. These enhancements will include:

• Efficiently retrieving account information from multiple systems using natural language processing;
• Identifying conversations with borrowers that could indicate vulnerability; and
• Developing call centres scripts that can guide them in real time for common borrower challenges, such as a change in financial circumstances.

Such enhancements will enable our teams to offer tailored advice and solutions, significantly improving our ability to support borrowers. By making our customer service more efficient and informed, we can respond to borrower needs more quickly and effectively – and at times even predict and intervene before problems arise – ensuring a smoother and more supportive borrowing journey. Meanwhile, our operational teams are deploying AI in a range of tasks to increase efficiency, giving our teams more time to support borrowers.

AI-Powered Credit Risk Assessment in India: The LoanGuard Initiative

In India, our role extends to supporting clients such as banks and non-bank lenders with loan origination. LoanGuard – an AI-powered credit risk assessment tool which we gained through acquiring Rieom.ai – is increasing the accuracy and efficiency of credit evaluations. It uses a custom rule engine enhanced by domain-specific machine learning models to get a holistic view of applicant’s profile, financial information, and assets, enabling credit managers to make fact-based decisions.

LoanGuard's AI capabilities extend to assessing various aspects of lending, from understanding the borrower's background and financial details to evaluating collateral and overall application conditions. This multifaceted approach aids credit managers in identifying potential fraud, scrutinising financials, making informed routing decisions, and understanding complex data interrelationships. The goal is to minimise risk and maximise lending opportunities, enhancing responsible credit access for underserved populations.

Additionally, our LoanGuard operational team utilises generative AI capabilities, including a chatbot that assists them in accessing client-specific policies and procedures as needed. LoanGuard exemplifies our commitment to leveraging technology to bridge the credit gap, providing vital financial support, and fostering economic growth. We are also integrating Rieom.ai’s advanced AI capabilities into our global operations, underscoring our dedication to employing emerging technologies for the benefit of our clients, employees, and borrowers.

Conclusion

Using Pepper Advantage’s ‘Go get’ attitude, we are embracing the change AI is bringing to financial services. Our focus is on enhancing loan servicing by empowering our clients and teams with AI-driven tools and insights, thereby improving borrower outcomes. Our innovative LoanGuard tool is already transforming loan origination in India by providing more accurate and inclusive credit assessments. We are excited to expand this technology to new markets in 2024. Across all markets in which we operate, our commitment to data security, privacy, and alignment with relevant regulations remains unwavering.

As we continue to innovate, our focus is on creating a more inclusive, efficient, and borrower-friendly financial ecosystem. Through the lens of AI, we are supplementing our current strategies with additional insights and perspectives, playing a pivotal role in guiding our improvements and innovations.

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Eterna Partners
PepperAdvantage@eternapartners.com
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