Lenders should not be on ‘leading edge’ with AI, Solifi CTO says

While many asset-based lenders are scrambling to adopt AI to keep up with competitors, Solifi is taking a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race approach. Auto and equipment lenders should worry less about being on the “leading edge” with AI and more about focusing on gradual infrastructure upgrades and building a culture that is adaptable to change, Vinay Mehta, chief technology officer at Solifi, told FinAi News. Solifi is a SaaS provider for the secured finance industry. “Imagine if you go to work every day and you have a checklist that you have to follow and that checklist embodies all the things that prevent fraud and make sure that you do all the right things in a certain sequence,” he said. “Well, all of your systems are geared toward making sure that process is followed appropriately. … To have somebody say, ‘Do all the right things according to the process, but then also be innovative and not follow the process’ is where the culture conflict happens.” While Solifi plans its long-term transition to an AI-native SaaS provider, the company is focused on helping clients manage change in a “structured, formal and secure manner,” Mehta said. “We’re not allowing AI to be willy-nilly deployed into our production processes,” he said. Point solutions Point solutions and isolated use cases are crucial to Solifi’s measured AI strategy, Mehta said, adding that they allow the company to deliver AI solutions best suited for an institution’s needs, whether that’s front- or back-office tasks. “We’re seeing clients use a balancing act where they have a traditional SaaS method and they’re using another AI method and running them side by side to figure this out,” he said. “While there are plenty of use cases, very few of them have reached production.” The company launched an AI tool for document review earlier this year, with other strong use cases including compliance and data-driven customer analytics, he said. Lenders that use Solifi include: - DLL; - Huntington Bank; - Hyundai Capital America; - Paccar Financial; - PEAC Solutions; - Toyota Financial Services; and - U.S. Bank. Lenders should prioritize high-value use cases as part of a multiyear business plan, but in the meantime, they can still use AI for “quick-hit wins,” Shelly Tauer, senior vice president and equipment finance systems product manager at U.S. Bank, said during a panel discussion at the Solifi Summit in June. “Where are some of the things in your organization that are consistent, repeatable?” she said. “It might even be shaving off a couple minutes on a process. … When you take that times 10,000 transactions a month, that’s a big number.” For Solifi and its clients, relatively slow AI adoption allows them to “look at the mistakes that other people have made,” Mehta said. “That’s almost more valuable than following behind in terms of things that have been successful because then you don’t expose your client base,” he said. “As a regulated industry, we don’t want to make any missteps.” Register here for the FinAi Lending Summit, set for Oct. 7-8 in Las Vegas. This inaugural event will include speakers from Fifth Third and Capital One as well as a fireside chat with Piermont Bank founder and Chief Executive Wendy Cai-Lee.