Published On: April 3, 2020|By |Categories: Blog, News|

Supporting Canada’s Financial Community Through COVID-19

At JUDI.AI we’ve started to see the immediate effects that COVID-19 is having on the small business community and the demand for access to credit. Small business loan applications have increased by 49% across our Canadian customers compared to previous weeks and we foresee these numbers continuing to trend upwards in the coming weeks.  

The Federal Government recently established the Business Credit Availability Program (BCAP) in cooperation with the BDC and EDC to help small businesses obtain credit in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Based on information gleaned to date, they will launch two programs: the Canada Emergency Business Account, a $25B program designed to allow financial institutions to provide interest-free loans of up to $40,000 to their small business members; and the Small and Medium Enterprise Loan and Guarantee Program, a $40B program to allow financial institutions to extend credit up to $6.25M. 

In response to last week’s announcement, the team at JUDI.AI has been working diligently on developing a product solution tailored to helping financial institutions operationalize these programs in order to provide business continuity to the small business owners they serve during this challenging period. 

How JUDI.AI is supporting Canada’s financial community 

As we continue to see the demand for small business credit increase, we’ve come up with our own response to help Canadian financial institutions leverage modern software applications and machine-learning driven analytics to underwrite small business loans more quickly.  

Steps to managing the upcoming influx of small business loan applications 

  • Support government funded loan programs: Quickly and securely enable the approval of small business loan requests by phone or from your website. JUDI.AI can be easily configured to support new credit policies defined by each of these programs. 

  • Go virtual with remote lending: Small business applicants can submit their loan application online via a secure weblink and by telephone with their Account Manager, with a credit decision made in under 5 minutes.  

  • Monitor your loan book in real time: As borrowing demand increases, now is the time to start understanding the impact this will have on their small business and your small business loan portfolio. Use Financial Monitoring to analyze fluctuations in debt service coverage ratios, account balances, tax payments, NSFs, and get a birds-eye view of your customers’ financial health. Identify red flags in real-time and address these with your customers before they become an issue.  

  • Augment existing decisioning processes with real-time analytics: As credit requests come in over the coming months, traditional data sources like financial statements, tax returns and credit scores will be of limited value. They represent a view of a world that has ceased to exist – at least temporarily. Get a dynamic view of your applicants using automated and real-time cashflow analysis directly from bank transaction data, giving your team a 360-degree view of your applicants’ cashflow both point-in-time and ongoing.   

A secure cloud platform that is easily deployed and rises to the occasion:   

In times of uncertainty and mounting pressure, financial institutions need a reliable solution to keep their businesses operating to meet the growing demand for credit from the small business customers they support. The above steps and solutions can be taken in sequence, simultaneously, or independently. The JUDI.AI platform can be implemented in as little as 2 weeks, either complimenting your existing technology infrastructure, or as a stand-alone solution. Our team is here to support your business immediately for the challenges and uncertainty ahead.  

Please contact us to learn more about JUDI.AI and our response to the recent BCAP program. 

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