US banks used to monitor their loan books using historical financial systems. The process was largely manual, meaning clients used to prepare reports for all borrowers on a scheduled basis. There was no way to identify risk early in the book using a forward-looking view.

To develop a new risk management product using forward-looking scenarios to calculate risk scores for each borrower and consequently assign ratings.

I was involved in this project from its inception. My responsibilities included doing discovery work, understanding customer pain points, understanding our own strengths and vision, and proposing a viable business opportunity. We developed an MVP, tested it with our reference clients, took their feedback, and improved our product further.

It wasn't easy to align market requirements with OakNorth's strengths around credit modeling. It was also hard to convince clients to change their working methods and adopt our solution.

The trial was successful. Portfolio managers could prioritize high-risk borrowers for review, while the low-risk cases could undergo a light-touch check. Based on feedback, we made many enhancements to the product over the years.