This lender is using AI to make loans through social media

As U.S. banks wrestle with the decision of whether to use artificial intelligence to help calculate credit scores and make loan decisions, a potential role model is MyBucks, a company that's been doing this for more than a year --and has even begun offering 15-minute, AI-based loans through WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. MyBucks is a Luxembourg-based fintech that owns several banks and provides loans and basic banking products in seven African countries, Poland and Spain; it's expanding rapidly into other countries. U.S. regulators have signaled a willingness to accept banks' use of AI in lending. And the evidence so far, at least in MyBucks' case, shows that AI can improve credit quality and reduce defaults. MyBucks' Haraka app, which is now offered in Zimbabwe, Uganda, Swaziland and Kenya, and in early 2018 is expected to be introduced in the Philippines and India, can score a customer within two minutes.