Speed, Accuracy, Compliance - How IDP is Helping to Transform the Loan Approval Processes

How a leading Middle East bank cut business loan approval times with the help of EDC’s Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) solution

Businesses need quick access to finance. In fast-moving markets like the Middle East, where agility is key, the ability to adapt quickly determines success. Businesses rely on access to rapid, versatile financing mechanisms.

However, many banks in the Middle East have been slow to adapt. Traditional loan approvals are lengthy and rely heavily on administrative staff, which is time-consuming, prone to human error, and expensive. Inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the review and analysis process can also lead to unsound lending decisions. The nature of these processes often contributes to a poor customer experience.

EDC’s Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) solution automates the process of extracting data from financial statements, cutting processing time from days to minutes, improving accuracy, and providing better outcomes for the bank and its business customers.

The bottleneck

The business loan approval process in the Middle East often includes manual statement reviews. It’s an important part of the process because the bank rightly needs to understand the history of the business's transactions in order to build an accurate picture. But this process can be challenging for several reasons. First and foremost, the size, density, and complexity of the business statements involved create a significant bottleneck. Each statement contains thousands of data points, and processing is time and labor-intensive.

The sheer volume of data also increases the likelihood of errors - human fatigue is a natural consequence of hours analysing data and inevitably leads to errors. Basing lending decisions on inaccurate information can result in regulatory breaches. As a result, additional checks and balances are implemented, which extends processing time even further.

These were all considerable issues for a leading Middle Eastern bank and current EDC client. The client relied on large teams and manual processing to manage its corporate financing applications. Employees carefully studied account statements for potential issues, such as bounced checks, missed payments, and other red flags. They would then have to identify when and why these risk indicators occurred. With a 50-60 page document, this took the lender several days of line-by-line manual data analysis and extraction.

For the bank, the delays in funding approvals translated to a poor customer experience and high customer dissatisfaction and frustration. At the same time, missed risk indicators contributed to inaccurate approvals and compliance concerns. EDC’s IDP date extraction solution was central to resolving these inefficiencies, preventing inaccuracies, and improving the customer experience.

EDC’s IDP solution transforms application processing

EDC’s IDP solution speeds up the financing approval process by automating data extraction. Rather than taking days to work through critical documents, extraction and categorization take seconds. Using advanced AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP) capabilities, the IDP solution reads and understands complex documents, ensures no transactions are overlooked, and extracts all relevant data accurately, enabling quicker identification of risk concerns, such as missing payments, account anomalies, and potential fraud.

EDC’s client implemented IDP as part of a project to automate parts of their loan application process. The results speak for themselves.

• Processing time fell by 90%. It now takes minutes rather than days.
• Processing accuracy improved, reducing the bank’s exposure to risk and contributing to improved compliance.
• Loan officers could now spend less time on manual document processing and focus on advisory roles and tasks, maximizing their value to the bank.
• Loan decisions could be made and communicated far quicker.

Improving CX by facilitating a new approach to lending

Streamlining the financing application and approval process allows banks to deliver an improved customer experience by providing faster access to financing and enabling their business customers to be more responsive and move with greater agility. In turn, this results in greater trust in banking services and financial institutions and stronger long-term relationships.

For lenders, the long-term benefits are clear. Faster loan approvals mean increased business growth and greater revenue. Dedicating fewer human hours to manual document processing also reduces operating costs, while stronger checks and balances on data accuracy improve compliance and reduce risk.

IDP is changing the lending landscape

Many lenders in the Middle East and around the world still rely on time-consuming and error-prone manual data extraction when processing financing applications. But a fast, smart, and accurate AI-powered solution exists. EDC’s IDP solution automates a big part of the application and approval process, helping to improve the way banks and other lenders provide financing to commercial clients.

Businesses want fast and fair access to financing so lenders that can provide such a service can gain a significant competitive advantage. IDP delivers accurate data quickly so that properly informed decisions can be made.

Contact EDC to explore how EDC’s IDP solution can help accelerate your loan approvals today.