In another move to expand offerings, Poonawalla Fincorp has entered into education loan segment with plans to offer loans of up to Rs30 million for students pursuing higher education at international universities. The new offering includes an industry-first feature providing instant sanctions for education loans up to Rs7.5 million. Students can secure financing of up to Rs10 million without collateral, says the lender.
The company has also come out with PL Prime Digital 24×7, a digital personal loan offering, designed to meet the credit needs of salaried professionals. It helps eligible customers to bypass traditional loan processes and avail loans up to Rs1.5 million in just 15 minutes through a completely paperless process, while allowing the flexibility of choosing longer EMI tenures and zero collateral option. The end-to-end digital solution eliminates paperwork and delays, making funds available when they are needed the most.
Meanwhile, the company is growing its unsecured loans portfolio by targeting premium borrowers with unsecured loans of up to Rs1.5 million, disbursed digitally in 15 minutes. Poonawalla Fincorp MD & CEO Arvind Kapil said rather than increasing risk, the company is diversifying its portfolio while attracting high-quality borrowers. While such loans are essentially for the salaried class, the company plans to extend it to self-employed soon. The interest rates start from 12% and is based on credit scores.
Tech Frontiers
Poonawalla Fincorp has introduced an AI-powered underwriting solution to automate and streamline its credit evaluation process. Developed in collaboration with IIT-Bombay, the solution helps the company improve the productivity of credit managers by 40% in retail lending.
The company says the tool helps accelerate credit decisions by ensuring an efficient, scalable, and risk-first approach. It does so by analyzing multiple data points from loan applications and allowing credit managers make decisions and enhance the overall risk management framework. The automated and intelligent credit decisioning tool is developed through integration of LLM (Large Language Models) and ML, capable of handling real-world underwriting demands, while keeping the human cognitive model at the core of the architectural design.
Arvind Kapil says that in the next phase of the development of the tool, the existing AI functionality will be evolved into a more sophisticated self-learning model. It will leverage powerful deep learning algorithms, enabling autonomous decision-making, continuous system improvement through pattern recognition, and multi-modal communication capabilities, he added.
On the AI journey, the company partnered with ServiceNow, a cloud-based platform-as-a-service (PaaS) provider, to implement AI-powered solutions for audit and governance.
