This award goes to an initiative that fully digitises the end-to-end process for a microloan, shrinking the time for the full process from two weeks to under two minutes, and forms the basis of a super app, which significantly improves financial inclusion amongst millennials.
Celent often hears about banks’ plans to become digital, but most initiatives are only as digital as their least digital process. Often, this is because the bank is hampered by needing to include their existing technology stack in the process flow. In this instance, the bank had additional reasons for a fully digital solution. With a large, geographically dispersed population, many of whom were un- or underbanked, the only way to serve those customers was via a mobile-based solution.
The bank made the decision to construct a new, parallel technology stack, built around leading-edge technology, including AI, electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC), and APIs. As a result, the bank scored a number of country firsts, including first authorised digital lender, and authorised digital lending as a service provider.
Alone, some of these aspects made Bank BRI a worthy winner; combined, the case was compelling. Furthermore, the products have been extremely successful, with impressive amounts of credit given even before formally launching, and making a materially noticeable impact on levels of financial inclusion.
