By Choong En Han

KUALA LUMPUR, May 7 (Bernama) -- Small-and-medium enterprises may be the new revenue stream for banks, however, financial institutions are still reluctant to provide capital to this sector due to lack of consistent and available data.

But, all this may change with automated credit decisioning solutions.

"Traditionally in emerging markets, we see a lot of top-end focus on major corporations and structural investments, but, there is still a huge amount of growth and creativity that can come out from the SME sector," said Stephen Gildert, Head of SME Credit, Experian Decision Analytics.

He said in order for banks to increase their loan portfolio, in tandem with their risk appetite, banks need to have an automated credit decisioning system to help them select and approve funds to the right clients.

"The SME market is vibrant and the government is putting a lot of support into this market which is an important part of the economy," he said.

Gildert said the SME sector currently contributed about 37 per cent to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

"The challenge still remains for banks to provide capital for SMEs in the absence of financial information, balance sheet and data compared with public listed corporations," he said.

Gildert added that the company can help clients manage risks, prevent fraud and make fast, automated decisions.

Experian specialised in providing credit risk and fraud management consulting services, and products to support organisations to manage and optimise risk, meet regulatory obligations and gain operational efficiencies.

Meanwhile, Regional Account Director Sadish Ray said Experian can develop scorecards relevant to particular industries by looking at the characteristics of a successful business.

"The important thing is to utilise the data that you have and evaluate your clients against the scorecards, enabling the flexibility to automate 90 per cent of decisions, hence speeding up business processes," he added.

"In our world, we have the facility to capture the information available and apply strategies to provide credit ratings on targeted groups.

"Furthermore, we have this great combination of local knowledge and global expertise which we can suit specifically to the needs and requirements of Malaysian banks," he said.

Sadish said with Experian's global presence in over 90 countries, serving more than 100,000 clients across many different industry segments, clients can leverage on its global data and experience to grow their operations.

"It is all about freeing this crucial data and utilising it to drive sound credit decisions and this is where we come in," Ray added.

-- BERNAMA