Cimb Bank Recognised For Best Financial Artificial Intelligence Project At The Asset Triple A Digital Awards 2022

CIMB Bank Berhad (“CIMB Bank” or “CIMB” ) has been awarded the Best Financial Artificial Intelligence Project in Malaysia at The Asset Triple A Digital Awards 2022 for its successful implementation of an automated artificial intelligence (“AI”) platform developed by DataRobot, a leader in AI Cloud solutions.

The AI platform enabled CIMB to develop machine learning credit models for its retail portfolio, which strengthened the Bank’s credit risk modelling and retail underwriting capabilities across unsecured loan products. This led to improved quality of loan screening, resulting in reduction of credit loss.

The fully automated AI platform leveraged CIMB’s wealth of traditional and alternative data to develop machine learning credit models for the bank’s retail portfolio. With the sharper models, the bank is able to reduce credit loss by improving the default probability estimation for retail loan applications.

The collaboration commenced work in mid-2020 to structure the use case and connect historical and real-time data. AI models were subsequently built based on these use cases and data, with the solution deployed into production by end-2020. Within six months of the AI platform going live, CIMB observed multiple benefits, including lower expected losses and higher returns against capital in its retail loans segment.

The newly developed AI models were rigorously tested and validated before being utilised in production for decision-making. These models were also compared to traditional models across a set of three loan products, where the new AI models demonstrated significantly improved accuracy.

Vera Handajani, Group Chief Risk Officer, CIMB Group said, "Our new credit risk platform, driven by innovative use of AI, has reduced the cost of processing loan applications and is expected to reduce our credit loss by improved default probability estimation for retail loans. Within six months, we were already able to see tangible results and savings from this AI-driven approach, building on our momentum as we scale digital transformation across the organisation. This is in line with our focus on digitising for value under our Forward23+ strategic plan.

Simon Brender, Regional Vice President Asia, DataRobot said, "As competition between regional, global financial institutions and fintech intensifies across the region, AI is becoming critical for financial services institutions operating in the region to stay ahead of the competition. CIMB is leading the way in harnessing the power of AI to reduce risk, and we are proud the noteworthy results of our collaboration have been recognised by this prestigious award from The Asset.”

The Asset Triple A Digital Awards recognise financial institutions and technology firms that have excelled in innovation and have developed a unique digital experience for customers across the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.

The Asset Triple A Awards have been built upon a stringent methodology and a rigorous approach to selecting the winners. The awards are adjudicated by The Asset's board of editors, who collectively have several decades' worth of experience evaluating industry awards in the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.