DecisionSmart decision engine drives innovative App that assists Saudi nationals with home ownership

DecisionSmart, a cloud-based decision engine developed by Principa and Qarar, has been deployed by a government-led mortgage application App.  The App recently won an award presented by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, for the best Arab Government SmartApp.

The solution allows Saudi citizens to apply for mortgages at eighteen banks from a single originator via the App.  All the automated vetting is conducted by DecisionSmart, and the output is also summarised by DecisionSmart and delivered to the customer.  The solution has been used by hundreds of thousands of Saudi citizens seeking financial assistance in the form of mortgages.

Saudi Arabia has a very active mortgage environment with home ownership expected to grow from 50% to 70% by 2030 and 1.22 million homes to be built during this decade.  Throughout 2021 mortgages are estimated to grow by USD21.33billion many of which will be financed through the App.

How it works

Applicants interested in applying for a mortgage fill out a form on the mobile application.  A SIMAH (credit bureau) record is pulled and the data is sent through into a single instance of DecisionSmart hosted in the cloud.

The solution utilises DecisionSmart’s rich bouquet of decision metaphors including scorecards, policy rules, decision trees, terms of business tables, calculations, and dual-score matrices.  Between 6000-8000 applications are processed daily.  The applicant is presented with multiple offers from a number of banks and can select the offer most attractive to them.  The applicant then completes the application with their preferred bank.

Jaco Rossouw, CEO, Principa said “Our DecisionSmart solution has been deployed at a number of different companies each with their unique requirements.  Home ownership is arguably the most important form of consumer credit, particularly from a socio-economic perspective. The versatility of DecisionSmart has enabled rapid decisions on hundreds of thousands of applications.”

Zaid Kamhawi, CEO, Qarar added “DecisionSmart’s deployment in this App is one of our most comprehensive projects to date.  We are proud that our software has been able to facilitate thousands of Saudis to become homeowners – many for the first time.  We wish this ground-breaking project every success in the ongoing drive to assist Saudi nationals and make a valuable contribution to the Kingdom’s 2030 vision.”