Bahrain Islamic Bank (BisB), a leading Bank in the Arab Gulf region, has announced Verofax as winner of the ‘BisB Innovation Challenge’, a Fintech Competition run as part of the Bank’s partnership with ‘FinHub 973: CBB (Central Bank of Bahrain) Digital Lab’, the Kingdom’s open application programming interface (API) innovation platform. Verofax, a mature and enterprise-ready service provider, was selected after rigorous screening to ensure a solution with the requisite level of feasibility and security to maintain the confidentiality and security of customers’ financial data.

Verofax, founded by Wassim Merheby, and technology partner Turnkey Lender proposed a unique approach in emerging as the Fintech with potential to build the most promising Proof of Concept (PoC) for the sought solution. Verofax offered a PoC for a Credit Scoring solution, incorporating alternative and unstructured datasets, to improve the Banks speed and breadth of its financial services to existing and new clients.

The Credit Scoring solution will constitute a platform that uses adaptive machine learning and sophisticated AI (Artificial Intelligence) to empower the Bank’s financial advisory unit with advanced data insights to enable them to provide a more personalized banking experience for their clients, especially in the wake of a pandemic that is evolving the banking landscape.

14 challengers from around the globe participated in the BisB Innovation Challenge, which was powered as the FinHub 973: CBB Digital Lab by Fintech Galaxy. The appointed judging panel comprised of Osama Nasr, Chief Information Officer of BisB; Wesam Baqer, Chief Corporate & Institutional Banking of BisB; and Yasmeen Al Sharaf, Head of Fintech and Innovation Unit at the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB).

Panel judge Wesam Baqer, Chief Corporate & Institutional Banking of BisB reiterated support for Verofax as the winner, stating, “We are confident that the Credit Scoring solution will bring a level of innovation to the banking industry that is both convenient and safe. The sought solution will ultimately simplify money matters for our customers’ securely, and it will streamline internal operations while providing them with data-backed intelligence, allowing us to deliver an exceptional level of service, which was ultimately the determining criteria in our selection of the winning participant, Verofax.”

Chief Executive Officer of BisB, Hassan Jarrar, said, “The BisB Innovation Challenge and tech-focused Fintech Competitions of this nature are imperative for innovation, especially considering the upcoming challenges facing the financial industry, both in the wake of COVID-19 and in order to effectively bridge the existent gap we have in the market when it comes to innovative Fintech solutions. We want to create better synergies between FinTechs and Banks, and harness the power of technology and AI to solve real issues, and encourage cross-industry collaboration, in order to offer a transformed customer experience.”

Wassim Merheby, CEO of Verofax Limited, added, “AI-based credit scoring solutions are innovative services that draw intelligence from non-linear relationships across a plethora of unstructured and alternative datasets. The service powers banks with unmatched visibility and speed while helping reduce the probability of default and increase financial inclusion. We partnered with Turnkey Lender to provide BisB with exclusive solutions to secure its financial services with simplicity.”

Dmitry Voronenko, CEO and co-founder of TurnKey Lender congratulated Verofax, “We’re extremely excited about helping larger audiences in the Middle East extend fully digital affordable credit to their clients locally and worldwide. We are happy and delighted to be selected by our partner Verofax. We look forward to continued and extended collaboration on new lending automation, credit scoring, and decisioning projects.”

150 +