SIMAH, the Saudi Credit Bureau, and Qarar have announced a strategic partnership with Emkan Finance, a new digital lending platform in Saudi Arabia to deliver a comprehensive credit risk management solution covering data, advanced analytics, and automation.

Emkan Finance provides micro-financing services digitally to Saudi nationals for their personal finance and whitegoods purchases across retailers in the Kingdom.  The company is fully owned by Saudi Arabia-based Al Rajhi Bank, one of the largest banks in the world.

This service is the first digital finance offering to be rolled out for Emkan’s potential customers who can log onto Emkan’s mobile application on AppStore or GooglePlay and apply for consumer finance, personal finance, top-ups and whitegoods financing.

Emkan’s solution is fully digital, supported by instant decisioning through SIMAH’s Hosted DecisionSmart decision engine, without any need for manual intervention.  It is a complete end-to-end cloud solution offered by SIMAH & implemented by Qarar.

Swaied Alzahrani , CEO  of SIMAH , said: “Emkan Finance has the vision and drive to clearly demonstrate that Saudi Arabia is taking big strides forward in the digital lending arena.  Supporting Saudi nationals, as we look ahead to the Kingdom’s 2030 vision, is a key priority and we are very happy to have delivered a robust lending solution.”

SIMAH, Qarar’s parent company, provided Emkan with a hosted Decision Engine service, configured with Emkan Risk Appetite Criteria, the application score designed by Qarar, Dual Matrices for Risk Grades, and a fully automated scoring and decisioning for an optimal customer journey.

Saud Ghoneim ,  CEO of  Emkan Finance , said: “We were looking for a partner to help us go live quickly and support all our digital lending requirements, and SIMAH and Qarar were the perfect choice to provide the technology and expertise.  We have successfully launched our product and are proud that our digital platform was fully developed on home soil by Saudi companies.”

Qarar successfully provided analytics to design Application Scorecards (Expert model) and expert advisory services to align Emkan’s credit policies with the new application score.  It also features bureau score analysis for scoring Emkan’s portfolio along with the application score at origination.  The overall solution provides risk grades, customer product eligibility and alternatives, while offering risk- based pricing.

Zaid Kamhawi, CEO of  Qarar , said: “We have notched up a number of successful partnerships in digital lending over the past few years.  What is unique about this project is the development of an optimal digital customer journey and low total cost of ownership as the overall proposition is a service hosted in cloud at SIMAH and fully compliant with data security and protection guidelines by SAMA.  I believe Qarar is instrumental in setting the data analytics benchmark for future digital lending platforms in the region.”