The project deliverables of this project include the following components: 1. Online document processing engine using AI-based optical character recognition technology with functions below: a. scanning upload documents from MSEMs such as Business Registration & Company Registration Certificates, Hong Kong Identification Cards, financial statements, bank statements and bill statements b. transforming the scanned information into digital data 2. Data analytics engine for credit assessment and monitoring with functions below: a. extracting required financial metrics from scanned data b. performing data analysis for credit assessment and credit monitoring 3. A white paper for proposing a new alternative credit assessment framework 4. A communication infrastructure for connecting strategic partners and related organizations, such as Company Registry, various credit bureaus, government organizations and financial institutions, to collect information for the analysis of alternative credit assessment 5. Alternative credit assessment and monitoring engine for implementing the newly proposed framework
Hong Kong Monetary Authority
Over 340,000 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) constitute over 98% of the business establishments and employ about 46% of the overall workforce in Hong Kong. However, MSMEs generally encounter difficulties in borrowing money from banks due to the lack of credit information infrastructure and huge burden in managing credit assessment and monitoring. In view of these difficulties and the new guidelines issued by Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) in May 2018 to encourage banks to adopt FinTech innovation in performing credit assessment, HKMA would like to facilitate loan applications between MSMEs and banks by engaging ASTRI to develop a pioneering matching platform and the HKMC Insurance Limited (HKMCI) to operate the platform in the long run. Therefore,
The proposed matching platform will empower lenders to perform more effective credit assessment and credit performance monitoring based on data analytics on credit information of MSMEs. In addition, a new alternative credit assessment framework for MSMEs will be created based on the advice from a panel of experts drawn from credit bureaus and financial industry. Together with the latest FinTech such as AI, data analytics and secure application programming interfaces infrastructure, the new framework will be implemented and deployed by ASTRI in the matching platform.