Banks must stop using AI to “lay off hundreds of people.” At Stead, you need to use it to lend to poor clients: GFTN’s Sopnendu Mohanty
Bank executives claim AI I can help Both their companies and clients. AI tools can speed up customer checks, help improve customer service channels, and spread them access To become a wealth management tool for people outside the wealthy income group.
However, according to Sopnendu Mohanty, co-founder of Global Finance and Technology Network (GFTN), AI’s most pressing need is to help banks acquire loans to low-income people and solve financial inclusive challenges.
GFTN is supported by Singapore’s monetary authorities. Previously known as Elevendi, who held the Singapore Fintech Festival. Currently, GFTN is expanding its authority to provide advisory services to emerging markets on how to make the most of technology in the finance sector, while submitting its Singapore model.
During Wednesday’s conversation at Fortune Brainstorming AI Singapore Meeting, Mohanty laid out why banks are still struggling to expand their loans.
“When you borrow money from a bank, the bank asks you for collateral, which is the standard process of lending,” he said. However, “the low-income segment does not have collateral.” This means that traditional models of fundraising cannot serve those people.
“The model cannot (subsist) resolve the need for global trust,” Mohanty said, describing it as “the elephant in the room.”
The World Bank reported last year that it is only about a quarter of low- and middle-income economies engaged in formal borrowing from banks or credit card companies.
For Mohanty, the bank is still focusing on how to use AI increase Productivity – such as allowing “sacking hundreds of people”;
“That’s not something we want to do with AI,” he insisted. Instead, AI can help instead “create reliable, predictive, golden source behavioral data.” This replaces the need for collateral.”
Some Southeast Asian companies, grabSea and Goto have expanded to financial services, serving banking customers, leveraging data collected from major businesses such as Ridehale and e-commerce.
Mohanty, the first fintech officer at the country’s central bank, the monetary authority in Singapore, also pointed out the importance of creating infrastructure to process identity data. He specifically cited the Indian Aadhaar system. The Indian Aadhaar system provided unique ID numbers to all Indian residents.
But Mohanti also hoped that within ten years, identity would be taken from the hands of the government. “We don’t need a state to control and deliver that trusted identity,” he suggests, relying on a decentralized network instead.
However, in close proximity, Mohanty expressed concern about how AI could threaten employment. “My biggest priority is to be proficiency,” he said. “If we don’t mature people, we’re heading towards a massive economic disaster.”
Earlier this year, Singapore launched a scheme to improve AI proficiency across the workforce, including sectors such as retail and manufacturing. The country is also planning to triple the number of “AI practitioners” to 15,000 over the next few years.
Tuesday, Fortune Brainstorming AI Singapore, Digital Minister Josephine Theo I said The “AI Practitioners” pool is to include professionals such as lawyers and doctors, as well as manufacturing professionals. These practitioners “will become early adopters of AI and then show their peers how to use it better,” she said.