BRIBrain Uses AI to Speed Up Loan Approvals, Helps More MSMEs Survive Pandemic

JAKARTA, Indonesia, Jan. 13, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) -- the world's largest microfinance institution and Indonesia's biggest bank -- launched its own in-house artificial intelligence (AI) platform called BRIBrain in late 2020.

Powered by the group's proprietary machine learning technologies, BRIBrain stores, consolidates, and analyzes information from various data streams across BRI Group and partner ecosystems to improve credit scoring and loan approvals processes.

BRIBrain was launched because Indonesia has more than 64 million micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that employ 97% of the workforce, or 117 million people. However, only 12% of these MSMEs have access to bank loans.
This situation has been exacerbated in 2020 by the Covid-19 pandemic, as more than half of Indonesia's MSMEs have been forced to close temporarily and lay off workers due to lower demand.

In addition, the safety concerns related to in-person transactions means there is increased pressure on MSMEs to not only get quick access to funding to stay afloat during an economic downturn, but also operate in a safe, fully-online manner.

BRI President Director Sunarso said: "Indonesia's MSMEs need working capital to survive during difficult times but also to thrive afterward, and they need it now. As the world's largest microfinance institution, we have a responsibility to answer this call. Our credit portfolio is worth more than US$66 billion and MSMEs represent 80% of it. As such, BRI Group is answering this call with BRIBrain."

He added, "With BRIBrain, we have accelerated underwriting and loan disbursement so that now MSMEs can get their loans approved in just two minutes. This is significant compared to a two-week period previously. This process is also now fully online, where it was only semi-digital before."

"Even Bank BRI's first-time MSME customers can take advantage of faster loan approvals, as they can open a BRI account online in a safe and socially-distanced way, without even needing to visit a branch office," said the President Director. According to Sunarso, through digitalization, BRI Group is on a mission to accelerate financial inclusion throughout Indonesia and contribute to the National Economic Recovery program set by the Indonesian government.

Enhanced risk management framework

BRIBrain has been implemented across the four pillars of BRI Group's risk management framework: Credit Scoring (BRIScore), BRILink Score for agent banking, Customer Profiling, and Internal Fraud Score. Cutting the average credit approval time from two weeks to two minutes is unthinkable for most institutional lenders around the world.

BRI Group is one of the few that has actually done it with tech. Using a large swathe of historical credit and transactional data, BRIBrain has vastly improved the credit scoring process to build more precise BRIScores for potential borrowers, while dramatically shortening the loan approval process.

BRIBrain provides what the company calls an 'augmented brain' to loan officers so they can make instant decisions to improve their sales pipelines in the field. They can easily open a webview portal of BRIBrain and find their sales pipeline with its scoring, product recommendations, and churn analysis.

On the agent banking side, Agen BRILink is a nationwide network of "branchless agents" designed to reach rural customers. BRIBrain enhances Agen BRILink's real-time evaluation system by creating quick and precise BRILink Scores. The AI platform also helps BRI Group identify suitable customers who can be onboarded as BRILink agents. It's also worth noting that these BRILink agents are playing a significant role in distributing government and social aid to communities affected by Covid-19 across the archipelago.

With regards to customer profiling, BRIBrain draws on a trove of data to furnish customers with relevant information and product recommendations. Internally, BRIBrain also ensures real-time updates to customers' Internal Fraud Scores by analyzing fraudulent practices and predicting fraud potential based on transaction anomalies.

Bank BRI managing director of digital, IT, and operations Indra Utoyo said, "As Indonesia's biggest digital bank, AI plays a pivotal role in BRI's digital transformation. BRI is the first bank in Indonesia that utilizes AI in its risk management framework, across credit scoring, product recommendation, merchant assessment, and fraud detection systems."

"We are also the first bank in Indonesia to be certified internationally for Big Data. With BRIBrain, the nation's largest lender is now also the fastest and most innovative," he added, sharing the ISO number (ISO:27001).

Augmenting the digital ecosystem

Indra Utoyo, BRI Group's Managing Director of Digital, IT, and Operations, said BRIBrain helps the group improve its risk management features across all of its digital products, including digital lending app Ceria and open banking initiative BRIAPI. "BRIBrain's tech has augmented our Ceria app, which targets e-commerce transactions and millennial consumers. Since its launch in the first quarter of 2020, Ceria has seen loan portfolio growth of 6x year-on-year," said Utoyo.

Using fast verification times, facial recognition technology, and in-app credit plans, Ceria is leveraging the growth potential of Indonesia's e-commerce sector, which is set to reach US$82 billion in total value by 2025. Meanwhile, BRIAPI is an application programming interface (API) that allows integration between third party applications and BRI services. Since its inception in 2018, BRIAPI has handled more than US$2.5 billion worth of transactions from more than 200 partners throughout the country.

Utoyo said, "With a cheap, fast, and secure transactional API that is now enhanced by BRIBrain's AI and machine learning capabilities, BRI Group sits at the forefront of open banking in Indonesia."

About BRI Group

Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI Group) is the largest microfinance institution in the world and Indonesia's biggest digital bank. It is one of the nation's leading commercial banks and the country's largest lender by assets. Bank BRI is the longest-standing bank in the country, first established in 1895, now with more than 9,400 branches throughout the country. Digital Centers of Excellence Division of BRI is committed to providing customers with innovative services and solutions for modern banking needs.

For more information or to arrange interviews, please use the contact information below.

Media Relations
Email: [email protected]
PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk
Digital Centers of Excellence

Media Contact

Andrew Lawson, BRI Group, +1 5033954007, [email protected]

SOURCE BRI Group