Youness Bounif, Chief Product Officer at Algoan: “Generative AI allows us to be up and running in new countries faster”

If you’re aware of generative AI, you’re also aware that it’s been hyped to the artificially generated skies. We’re more down to Earth here at TechFinitive, which is why our collective ears always perk up when we hear about a company that is using gen AI in the real world. In this interview, Youness Bounif, Chief Product Officer at Algoan, provides brilliant insights into exactly how his company is using it, too.

Algoan is a Paris-based fintech that develops leading-edge “credit decisioning technology” for financial institutions and lending fintech companies. Naturally, that means it relies on data – thanks to Open Banking – and technology to make instant and accurate decisions.

“[We] leverage AI and machine learning in our products to build advanced and adaptable algorithms,” Youness told us, “allowing our customers to assess credit applicants’ affordability and creditworthiness.”

And now it’s using generative AI to accelerate its own growth. “We also use Generative AI to annotate data automatically instead of relying on humans to train our categorisation/classification models,” explained Youness. “This allows us to be up and running in new countries faster and to reduce errors in the process of annotation.”

Find out more below, along with the challenges Youness sees facing fintechs in 2024 and beyond, plus his advice for anyone considering a career in fintech. And if you read the answer to our first question, below, you won’t be surprised to hear that he recommends it…

Could you please introduce yourself to our audience and share how you ended up working in fintech?

My name is Youness Bounif. I hold an engineering degree in Computer Science as well as a Master’s degree in Strategy and Management.

I started my career as a software engineer and then moved to a variety of roles within the biggest French software company (Dassault Systèmes, which develops 3D product design, simulation, manufacturing and other 3D software-related products) such as Strategy, M&A, Product and Competitive Intelligence. Throughout the various roles, I was always fascinated by product topics and how we can build and maintain a product or a feature that gives the company a competitive advantage.

In 2018, I co-founded a startup that developed digital transformation solutions for the catering industry. The topic was very interesting, and we were able to sign a few customers, but the market was small, and the number of customers was very limited.

In 2020 I joined Algoan to become its first Chief Product Officer and structure all topics related to Product. The fintech world has always been fascinating to me. Joining Algoan allowed me to apply my knowledge and my experience in tech in order to help disrupt the way credit decision-making is done with the mission of helping lenders accept more credit applicants and better manage credit risk.

What do you think traditional finance and banking companies can learn from disruptors in the fintech space?

There are several things that traditional finance and banking companies can learn from disruptors in the fintech space.

First, fintech companies innovate more often and experiment with lots of things. They don’t fear failure and they end up making big innovations. Traditional finance players and banks can learn to focus more on innovation by being more agile and more flexible. For instance, traditional banks and financial institutions should leverage AI to innovate and catch up with fintech companies that already leverage AI and machine learning.

Second, agility is one of the most important aspects of fintech companies. They’re able to move quickly on any topic and adapt when there is a problem on the initial path that has been taken. This is what enables them to move quickly and be the first to propose new products and services in the market. Traditional players can learn from fintech companies to become more flexible and more agile to adapt to market and customer needs.

Third, fintech companies are known to be data-driven and to make decisions on concrete data and statistics. They gather data, structure it, enrich it and analyse it to get insights on their customers and how they use their products. This enables fintech companies to improve their products and deliver innovative features.

Fourth, fintech companies thrive through partnerships and collaborations. Instead of viewing them as competitors, traditional finance players and banks can collaborate with fintech companies. This leads, very often, to offering innovative products and services to their respective customers.

Recommended reading: Top ten breakthrough fintech companies

In what ways is artificial intelligence impacting the fintech sector?

AI has a big impact on process automation, fraud detection and compliance with regulation, but it’s also helped to create new ways of doing credit scoring and decision making as it enables digesting big amounts of data to build best-in-class scoring algorithms based on new types of data such as Open Banking (bank transaction data).

This is what we do at Algoan and we leverage AI and machine learning in our products to build advanced and adaptable algorithms allowing our customers to assess credit applicants’ affordability and creditworthiness.

We also use generative AI to annotate data automatically instead of relying on humans to train our categorisation/classification models. This allows us to be up and running in new countries faster and to reduce errors in the process of annotation.

What are some of the biggest regulatory challenges affecting the fintech sector?

When it comes to fintech, regulation is one of the biggest challenges that impact the growth and success of any company.

One of the main challenges is regulatory fragmentation as many fintech companies offer their services in multiple jurisdictions. Very often regulations vary from one jurisdiction to another, which forces fintech companies to spend a lot of time and resources to comply with local regulations

Another regulatory challenge is licensing and authorisation. Many fintech companies require licenses or approvals from local regulators. Getting these licences and approvals can be a very lengthy and complex process, which limits the growth and scaling of the company

The last challenge is regulatory uncertainty. The fintech sector is a fast-paced evolving sector where innovation and new products and services are rolled out very often. However, the regulation landscape does not evolve very often, and some existing regulations might not be compatible with new technologies and innovation. This creates difficult operating environments for fintech

Recommended reading: Nick Allen, CTO of Aro: “Gen AI will impact all businesses, just like the internet did initially”

How does your company differ from its direct competitors in the fintech space?

Algoan has focused on Open Banking credit decision-making since the beginning of 2018. We believe that Open Banking is a revolution when it comes to credit, and the market is confirming this – as the topic becomes more and more mature, big financial institutions are now relying on Open Banking to assess credit applicants’ affordability and creditworthiness.

Some competitors rely on other alternative data sources, but we found that they are not necessarily relevant when it comes to assessing individuals. Other types of data are relevant though in the context of SME lending.

Also, Algoan is laser-focused on credit use cases which makes us experts on the topic, whereas some other players leverage Open Banking for a variety of use cases (credit, customer knowledge, marketing), which makes their product offering less “specialist” when it comes to a specific use case.

Last but not least, we designed our products since the beginning to adapt to any geo in order to be able to support our customers everywhere. Open Banking data is the same everywhere (accounts and transactions) and we developed a replication pipeline based on proprietary models that allows us to replicate our models in a new jurisdiction very quickly and with minimum effort.

What advice do you have for aspiring professionals wanting to work in fintech?

Fintech is a great sector.

If you want to work in fintech then you need to have or build some expertise in both finance and technology. The fintech industry is large, and you can focus on a specific area such as payments, lending or wealth management.

You also need to develop relevant skills. Depending on the role you want to have, it can be technical skills (programming, data analytics, machine learning, regulatory compliance, etc) or soft skills (communication, problem-solving, adaptability, etc). Having a mentor when you get into the industry could be a real accelerator. It often leads to self-discovery and helps you accelerate your career.

In addition to that, you need to stay up to date as the fintech sector evolves rapidly. Staying informed on the latest trends, regulatory changes and innovations is very important. You can do this by reading publications, blogs and specialist newsletters, attending webinars and other events, and developing your network.

Finally, you need to be flexible and open-minded: the fintech sector is known for rapid changes. You need to be flexible and adapt to any changes that might require learning new skills, adding quickly new features or pivoting to a new topic.