Asian markets exploring opportunities in Fintech

Hitachi, Hitachi Asian markets (Vietnam) Co, Ltd. local subsidiary of Hitachi in Vietnam, and VietCredit Finance Company (“VietCredit”), a local Vietnamese consumer financial institute in Vietnam, announced that they are the latest collaboration to reach an agreement on the start of a demonstration experiment to provide new financial services using digital technology such as AI. The project will be known as ‘the demonstration’.

The companies will present an automatic contractual system on tablet terminals at certain VietCredit offices for verification in a service that enables convenient submission acceptance and also contracts for personal loans. Hitachi’s Artificial Intelligence – used to predict rare events – will be used for loan screening and real time credit checking.

Throughout the project, the companies will pinpoint issues and then verify the effectiveness to provide a new range of financial services that will positively impact customer convenience, like turnaround time from loan acceptance to submissions to the signing off of contracts. In time, they intend to develop a service that combines the automatic contract and the AI loan screening service to digitize a sequence of procedures from acceptance to the conclusion of contracts.

The service for a real time loan contract finalized on a tablet, is a first attempt in Vietnam. The companies will install and implement the terminals in all VietCredit offices. This will gradually expand installation areas to other office buildings and industrial parks with an aim to develop an environment where more citizens are able to utilise a new era of financial services.

Despite the expanding market in Vietnam, old fashioned and institutionalized bureaucratic processes are preventing the potential high efficiency in the work place. Issues such as incomplete documents and long turnaround time are unnecessary hindrances which cause significant delays. Furthermore, the increase in the transactional volume of personal loans require more accurate credit screening to protect consumers and also to prevent unreasonable loan amounts being granted in advance.

As a result of this situation, Hitachi, Hitachi Asian markets (Vietnam) and VietCredit have all agreed to cooperate for the progression of financial services in the country. Based on their agreement, they will begin by studying automatic contract services using AI. The companies will develop a dependable, secure service which will take advantage of Hitachi’s accomplishments and knowledge on automatic contract systems for personal loans, which was originally developed in Japan. The design of the automatic contract service is intended to reduce the pressure on reception operations, which are conventionally paper based. Users will be able to enter and submit their information easily with support from an operator, using the communication and messaging feature on the tablet terminal, avoiding cumbersome handwritten document creation, which will in turn, improve convenience and lessen the turnaround time.

In contrast to specifically dedicated automatic contract machines, by taking advantage of the property of portable tablet terminals, this service is available in the office and outside. This will allow contract personnel to use it while visiting, thus contributing to further channel growth and opportunity. When screening the loans at back offices, the service performs scoring with Hitachi’s original AI “AT/PRC,” which has previously been used for mortgage screening by financial institutes in Japan. It allows for intense and elaborate screening, based on sizeable amounts of data and reduces the dependence on individual experiences to enhance efficiency such as the further improvement of accuracy and the reduction of turnaround time.

VietCredit will continue to integrate advanced technologies in an aim to expand convenient and innovative financial services in Vietnam to respond to growing and more demanding customer requirements.

Based on the results of ‘the Demonstration’, Hitachi will facilitate the development of new solutions to evolve loan systems as well as continuously enhance services by using cutting-edge IT and voice recognition technology. In addition to this, Hitachi will expand these initiatives in Vietnam to Japan and Southeast Asia, where it is predicted that demand will contribute to the expansion of financial services in Asian markets and the improvement of convenience.