By Byron Kingsley Chua
On July 5, 2024, a team of UBXers highlighted the power of Agile methodologies at the Pecha Kucha Showcase, hosted at the Unionbank Innovation Campus. Organized by the Aboitiz Group’s Culture Tribe, the event brought together seven squads to share their triumphs, innovations, and transformative ideas. The PechaKucha format—a rapid-fire presentation style originating from Japan—featured 20 slides, each with a 20-second commentary.
Romarica Ilao, or “Roma,” UBX’s lead data scientist, opened the showcase as the inaugural speaker. Here’s a summary of what she presented.
The Age Old Challenge
Traditional lending processes can be time-consuming due to limited access to comprehensive creditworthiness data. Accurately assessing a borrower’s credit risk is challenging, as crucial information such as payment history, outstanding debts, and credit history length may be incomplete. To improve lending decisions and borrower access to funds, UBX developed an AI-powered Trust Score System.
How did UBX do it?
UBX leverages a diverse dataset, encompassing loan application details, financial assets, and more, to power its AI-driven Trust Score. Advanced machine learning techniques, including logistic regression, extreme gradient boosting, all help provide a precise assessment of borrower reliability. This enables confident investment in high-potential clients.
To enhance the model’s adaptability, UBX implemented reinforcement learning. Unlike traditional static models, the Trust Score evolves over time, continuously learning from new data and improving its accuracy without human intervention. The team doesn’t need to actively do anything anymore—now that’s AI!
It is a feat in itself that the Trust Score was launched, as many data science projects struggle to move beyond the modeling phase. The UBX team excelled in developing a solution that directly addresses the needs of our customers and partners. Clear goals, problem identification, and effective execution were instrumental in creating the Trust Score.
What began as a product enhancement has evolved into a promising new product line. The Trust Score has garnered significant interest from leading e-wallets in the Philippines. Despite possessing robust data science capabilities, these companies recognize the unique value proposition of our solution.
What does this mean?
The Trust Score is just the beginning. UBX’s vast dataset, including loan applications, submitted documents, and even borrower selfies, offers a wealth of untapped potential. By integrating existing scoring models, UBX can further optimize the platform’s efficiency.
This innovation is a game-changer for small businesses. Traditionally, those without a credit history faced significant barriers to accessing capital. The Trust Score empowers UBX to assess credibility and measure trust without relying on traditional credit scores, enabling us to partner with lenders and provide vital funding to underserved entrepreneurs.
