VTB has introduced a robot for processing and verifying data on applications for soft loans at 2% per annum for small and medium-sized businesses under the Russian state employment support program. The robot has reduced the processing time of applications by almost five times.
Granting soft loans for business recovery is one of the measures taken by the Russian government to support enterprises in industries affected by the pandemic. The process of issuing a loan involves checking the client’s data in the register of the federal tax service (FTS). This verification is carried out using the FTS blockchain platform, which VTB was one of the first banks to join.
Robots take a loan application from the bank’s internal system and enter it into the federal tax service to check the client’s data regarding any existing loan applications from other banks, the size of the organization, and more. The robot then returns information from the federal tax service to the bank’s internal system to make a decision on the loan. This takes less than 40 seconds.
“As part of our digital transformation strategy, VTB is robotizing routine operations that are performed by employees in the business operations support department. The introduction of this robot in a record time — just three weeks — has significantly reduced the processing time for applications for state support loans, reduced operational risks and removed the routine burden of checking customer data in the federal tax service from almost three thousand bank employees. The robot processes from 500 to 1500 applications per day. Ultimately, this allows us to support businesses quickly and at a critical time.” said Vadim Kulik, Deputy President and Chairman of the VTB Board.
“From the state support measures, the program of lending at 2% per annum for business recovery is the most popular. To date, we have approved 12.7 thousand applications from small and medium-sized businesses for more than 66 billion rubles (US$929 million), of which 9.8 thousand agreements for 48 billion rubles (US$675 million) have already been signed. With such high demand, it is extremely important for the bank to process incoming requests quickly. The robot allows you to speed up this process. This directly affects the implementation of the program, as the bank will be able to support even more businesses affected by the pandemic.” said Denis Bortnikov, Deputy President and Chairman of the VTB Board.
