- Could you provide a brief overview of Provenir and the range of products and services it offers?
Provenir’s AI-Powered Data and Decisioning Platform assists fintechs and financial service providers unlock the secret to smarter risk decisioning. The company brings together the power of decisioning, data and AI to drive instant decisions. This unique offering gives organizations the ability to power decisioning innovation across the full customer lifecycle, driving improvements in the customer experience, access to financial services, business agility, and more.
Integrating decisioning, data, AI and processes enables businesses to more accurately detect fraudulent activities, evaluate credit risk, and optimize pricing, while also reducing data bias through increased data diversity.
Provenir’s innovative approach has been implemented in more than 50 countries, partnering with disruptive financial service providers, and processing over 3 billion transactions annually.
- How has Provenir evolved over time, and what is its global history and vision for the Indian market?
Founded in 2004, Provenir has made significant investments in recent years to expand into new markets, increase its team, and continue offering its industry-leading products to customers. India’s fintech ecosystem is the third largest globally and is growing by almost 24% annually. Additionally, digital lending is expanding even more rapidly in the country. Despite these advancements, a large proportion of the Indian population remains unbanked, presenting an enormous opportunity to provide digital finance to this underserved group.
Provenir recognizes this opportunity and has a vision to help financial institutions in India by offering its AI-Powered Data and Decisioning Platform, which can assist in the decision-making processes of credit risk assessment, fraud detection, and pricing optimization. The platform is designed to be flexible, scalable, and user-friendly, making it suitable for businesses of all sizes. Provenir aims to support financial services providers in India by providing innovative solutions that enable them to serve a broader range of customers and contribute to the growth of the country’s economy.
- Can you explain how Provenir tailors its decisioning software to meet the specific needs of different customer segments in India, and who are its multiple target audiences?
At Provenir, we collaborate with a range of lenders, from small business lenders to well-established financial services providers. Our interactions with lenders reveal that access to data for better decision-making and the ability to leverage emerging technologies to simplify credit access for Indian customers are common requirements. Our platform is both integrated and modular, allowing us to assist organizations at any stage of their journey.
Provenir has been operating since 2004, providing us with extensive expertise in developing solutions for various financial services products and applications, including unsecured loans, SME lending, mortgage financing, two-wheeler and auto financing, consumer lending, telecommunications, and others.
- What sets Provenir apart from other AI-powered decisioning platforms in the Indian market?
We take pride in our platform’s ability to provide usability, speed and agility, which sets us apart from our competitors. Our platform is unique because it combines real-time, on-demand data access, embedded AI, and world-class decisioning technology, all in one unified platform. We also provide the Provenir Marketplace, a centralized data hub that provides easy access to a variety of data sources through a single API, including open banking, fraud, KYC, social media, and verification, among others. Our Marketplace presently has over 100 data vendors globally, with about 25 of them delivering India-specific data. By incorporating traditional and alternative data sources into their decisioning models, the Provenir Marketplace enables customers to access and leverage data effectively.
- How can the use of AI in risk decisioning lead to the prevention of cybersecurity-related issues and financial frauds?
The use of artificial intelligence in risk decisioning can help prevent cybersecurity-related issues and financial frauds by enabling faster and more accurate analysis of large amounts of data. AI algorithms can detect patterns and anomalies in data that may indicate fraudulent activity, allowing financial institutions to take proactive measures to prevent fraud before it occurs. For example, machine learning algorithms can be trained to identify and flag suspicious account activity in real-time, enabling rapid response to potential security breaches or fraudulent transactions.
- How is Provenir’s technology helping Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) in India improve their lending processes and reduce risk?
Provenir’s data and decisioning platform is empowering non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) in India to improve their lending processes and reduce risk by leveraging data and AI technologies. The platform allows NBFCs to integrate a range of data sources including traditional credit bureau data and alternative data sources, such as social media and utility payments, to build a more complete picture of a borrower’s creditworthiness.
Our platform enables NBFCs to make real-time lending decisions based on accurate risk assessments, reducing the time it takes to approve loans and improving the customer experience. Additionally, the platform’s fraud detection capabilities help NBFCs identify and prevent fraudulent activities before they can impact the business. By automating and streamlining the lending process, Provenir’s technology helps NBFCs to operate more efficiently and reduce the risk of default. This enables NBFCs to expand their lending portfolio while maintaining a strong risk management framework, ultimately leading to sustainable business growth.
- How does Provenir function in terms of SME lending?
Traditional loan processes for SMEs are paperwork heavy and lenders have a difficultly accessing risk accurately and quickly. SMEs contact 2 to 7 institutions and submit three applications on average during their hunt for funding. Our robust AI-powered data and decisioning platform is designed to help SME lenders streamline their processes and improve their credit risk assessments. Instead of relying on personal credit scores to decision business loans, we help lenders easily access business financial data, such as accounting documents and tax returns, and then analyze that data using AI and machine learning to get a deeper understanding of business health and make decisions on loans based on a prediction of future business success.
Provenir’s platform is also customizable, allowing SME lenders to configure their own lending rules and decisioning models to suit their specific needs. The platform’s flexibility enables SME lenders to reduce risk to improve their loan approval rates and improve the user experience by providing SMEs with rapid access to resources, help at the right time and simplifying every interaction.
- How does Provenir plan to leverage technology and innovation in its future growth strategy in India?
Recognizing the increasing demand for their data and AI-powered risk decisioning software in India, South Asia, and the Asia Pacific, Provenir has established a global technology and operations hub in India. This hub is not only meant to cater to Indian clients but also to serve customers globally. The primary goal of the hub is to provide a centralized location for the company’s technical teams worldwide to develop innovative solutions that address the most significant challenges faced by fintechs and financial service providers. The company is committed to investing in its Indian presence and delivering advanced solutions to its clients, indicating a focus on growth and continued innovation. The move demonstrates Provenir’s dedication to meeting the growing demand for its services in India and other parts of the Asia Pacific region.
- In your view, how has the financial sector in India changed in the past few years?
The digital lending industry has undergone significant changes in recent times, driven by evolving regulatory requirements and increased demand from customers for personalized products. Consequently, lenders have had to re-evaluate their existing credit risk technology platforms. The introduction of IndiaStack, which includes Aadhar, UPI, and Account Aggregator (AA), as well as Open Credit Enablement Network (OCEN), has opened up access to vast amounts of non-traditional or alternative data sources. To make real-time decisions and orchestrate this data effectively, lenders need technology systems that are scalable, user-friendly, and flexible enough to provide tailored offerings to their customers.