04 Aug Interview in The Founder Community
Interview in The Founder Community
A company and founder on a mission to change the underpinning of finance and banking as we know it!
What is your background?
Panos Skliamis is a strategic business development executive and management consultant with 20 years of experience creating outstanding and award-winning outcomes in financial, managerial, and operational roles. High impact and visionary professional with the capacity to execute fast, change, position, and deliver target-driven projects that lead to profitable growth by leveraging technological forces, quantitative analysis, and an international network of contacts. He embarked on a trip to FinTech in the last decade, and his latest venture is SPIN Analytics which developed RISKROBOT, the new paradigm in credit risk modeling. He is supported by a highly experienced team of banking experts in credit risk modeling, software development, and business expansion.
What problem are you solving? Did you face it personally?
We at SPIN Analytics faced the manual process of developing credit risk models early on in our career in banking, and we were always eager to find a solution.
Changing regulatory requirements and macroeconomic conditions mean that banks are constantly updating their credit risk models, a hugely manual and inefficient process. Generic analytics software and AI or machine learning platforms have failed to help as they do not incorporate credit risk expertise and are not transparent or auditable. However, while credit risk models have become more sophisticated, the process for building and updating a model remains largely manual and bespoke, requiring scarce, highly paid experts to develop and update models to meet the requirements of management and regulators. Despite all the advances in machine learning and big data, existing statistical modeling and AI tools have not addressed the most time-consuming stages of model development and hence have failed to solve this problem.
Even experienced modeling teams at the largest and most sophisticated lenders struggle to keep up with the increased demand for fast and better-quality models. This is because none of the tools available in the market have addressed the full range of tasks that modeling teams must complete, such as gathering and cleansing data, factor analysis, model selection, version control, documentation, and validation.
Furthermore, credit risk models must pass through many levels of review from development team leaders and credit risk managers to model validation, audit, and supervisors. This constant back and forth process of passing a model across the levels of approval can often take much longer time than the initial development. Last but not least, when changing a model, every bank must prove to the regulator what they have done.
What is your solution?
SPIN Analytics empowers banks and FinTechs with explainable AI automation in credit risk modeling
SPIN Analytics, a FinTech category leader, provides explainable AI-based software allowing any bank to industrialize its core Credit Risk Modelling function through the auditable, end-to-end automation of many processes using its RISKROBOT.
RISKROBOT allows a credit risk modeler in a bank or FinTech to build and update high-quality regulatory-compliant models in minutes and at a low cost and maintain and update models very easily. The platform automates end-to-end the process required to develop and document credit risk models, typically reducing effort by 90% and total costs by 70%. It incorporates expert knowledge and sophisticated algorithms to allow a modeler to build best-in-class, fully-documented models in hours, not weeks.
SPIN Analytics supports banks by easing the bottlenecks and resource constraints caused by the need to develop and redevelop regulatory compliant credit risk models for wholesale and retail portfolios in response to supervisory requirements, changes in macroeconomic conditions (e.g., Covid pandemic), or expansion into new products and markets, by dramatically accelerating model build and redevelopment in a transparent and auditable way. SPIN Analytics enables the modelers to develop, redevelop and validate models in hours and not in months.
The value for the banks is a saving of:
- thousands of hours of manual effort and
- millions of dollars
Where RISKROBOT can support financial institutions?
- Optimized end-to-end to support the entire workflow of credit risk modeling (PD, LGD, EAD, CCF, IFRS9, portfolio models)
- Its automation and explainable AI work together with the bank’s experts to achieve massive acceleration while keeping the bank in control of every decision
Why do you believe that this is the perfect time to build this product?
Through our pilot projects with major banks worldwide, we have proved product validation and huge market need.
SPIN Analytics would focus on
- Product development to support and enhance our international expansion.
- Attract tech experts to support our product development.
Why are you excited about the industry you are building in?
The post-covid “new normal” has broken the existing credit risk models: Economies, markets, businesses, and consumers behave very differently.
Banks need to rebuild hundreds of models, which would take six to nine months. RISKROBOT™ by SPIN Analytics is a new approach that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to combine Expert Judgement with classical risk modeling and Machine Learning (ML) techniques on Big Data to produce accurate predictive analytics for making credit decisions and managing risk. RISKROBOT™ supports all types of credit risk models (decisioning, BIII/BIV RWA, IFRS9/CECL, stress testing) for retail, commercial and corporate products, and portfolios. It is encoded with all current Credit Risk Regulations and decades of experience so that human experts are augmented – not replaced.
What has been the biggest lesson you have learned so far on your journey?
The journey to building a sustainable company from zero to one is a long process that requires perseverance and vision. We believe that we have reached the first important milestones as RISKROBOT works globally. Our Partners, which are giant tech companies, use our product for their GoToMarket strategy in the banking sector.
We have a strategic Global Partnership with Microsoft, offering our solution RISKROBOT™ in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. This allows all banks worldwide to turn to SPIN Analytics and take advantage of the speed and scale of RISKROBOT™.
Recently, Microsoft selected RISKROBOT™ for global positioning as the only application for banks’ regulatory credit risk modeling that brings AI into Credit Risk Management.
Also, we have Partnerships with Global System Integrators like Accenture, Capgemini, DxC Technology, TCS – TATA, Fujitsu, Infosys, and more.
SPIN Analytics is further expanding its international growth by forming a strong Global Advisory Board, which includes management consultants with first-hand experience in the financial services sector and impacting a company by implementing digital transformation on a national and global level.
It consists of
- Sue Harnett, Ex-Senior Exec of Citigroup, a global business leader, strategist, and board member with over thirty years of experience in operations, digital channels, restructuring, e-commerce, data analytics, M&A, and customer experience.
- Gautam Mukharya, Chief Risk Officer (CRO) for HSBC Singapore, a seasoned banker and Risk professional with 25 years of experience in the financial sector across multiple geographies, specializing in credit and enterprise risks and an active sponsor of Innovation, FinTech, and new technologies.
- Andrew Stott, a global banking and consulting veteran with over 40 years of professional experience in banking and consulting, including 11 years as Head of Western Europe for Oliver Wyman, subsequently leading the entry of Oliver Wyman into China and India.
What do you need help with?
Global Expansion, Growth & Establishment
SPIN Analytics is seeking Partners to work together towards its global expansion to deliver FinTech and RegTech innovations and accelerate customers’ success.
We are currently expanding our team, and we are looking for experienced talent who have scaled technology companies in the B2B banking software space. We are always excited to talk with investors about the business model and expansion plans.
View source version on The Founder Community.
