Heat wave pushes Indian lenders to use AI for collections
With a major heat wave set to hit India, lenders are leaning on AI to help collect loan payments and bring in new customers.
The extreme heat is making it tough for staff to do in-person cash collections, especially for microfinance and gold loan companies that depend on cash-based collections.
Lenders tighten rules and adopt tech
To deal with these challenges, lenders are tightening rules in climate-affected areas and ramping up their use of smart tech.
As Piramal Finance's managing director, Jairam Sridharan, puts it, AI can spot which borrowers will pay digitally, cutting down the need for manual follow-ups.
Last year's heat wave caused a noticeable dip in collections, but with more AI tools this time, lenders hope to keep collections down around just 2% points and make their operations more resilient overall.