Transaction: Citi, Validis team up to digitize commercial lending
The $1.6T Citi is rolling out new digitized platform in 5 regions
Citi is digitizing its commercial lending capabilities for mid-sized corporations to improve ease of use for global clients while accelerating turnaround times for credit applications.
The $1.6 trillion bank is working with financial data-collection provider Validis to help service its existing loans on its CitiDirect Commercial Banking platform. The platform is live in the U.S., Canada, India, Singapore, Hong Kong and Brazil, the bank’s biggest commercial banking markets, Colm Donnelly, head of digital lending transformation and partnerships for Citi Commercial Bank, told Bank Automation News.
The new digital platform can process loan applications in 15 business working days and provide funds disbursement in 30 working days, which Citi believes is on par with or lower than industry average, Donnelly said.
It will do so by “aggregating data directly from a client’s accounting software” to gain a better understanding of the borrower’s financial situation and serve them, Donnelly said.
“What we’ve been trying to do is look at the manual touch points and automate or digitize those,” he said.
To do this, Citi is revamping:
- Its credit application;
- How it receives documentation for both new lending and an annual review stage; and
- Loan monitoring.
Both Citi and $1.9 trillion Barclays have made strategic investments in Validis, according to a Jan. 14 release from the London-based fintech.
Use of AI
Citi is also exploring the use of AI in multiple functions, including reading and summarizing documents, Donnelly said. The bank has not deployed AI in credit decisioning for commercial banking, he added.
“Credit decisioning for commercial clients is more complex than retail clients,” Donnelly said, adding that the bank still relies on human underwriting to decode complex data of commercial clients.
The bank is also evaluating Validis’ tech for originating new loans for clients to gain a clearer understanding of the borrower, Donnelly said.
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