IBS Journal December 2015


Lending software vendor Axe Finance gains new wins, go-lives and partners


Tunisia-based credit process automation specialist, Axe Finance, has launched its flagship Axe Credit Portal (ACP) solution at Al Hilal Bank and First Gulf Bank. Al Hilal Bank is using the system for


collateral management and global limits (trading and banking book). First Gulf Bank has automated the end-


to-end credit application management for the commercial lending with ACP, states the vendor, and has streamlined its cred- it appraisal, underwriting and decisioning processes. IBS Intelligence reported exclusively on


the First Gulf Bank deal last April. At the time, the vendor was also chas-


ing leads in Indonesia and looking for part- ners to help it expand to new geographies. These endeavours are now bearing


fruit, it would seem: a new sales and imple- mentation partner has been onboarded in Poland and the first customer has been gained in Indonesia (one of the countries Axe Finance has been eyeing). A privately-owned bank in Indonesia


has recently signed for ACP to ‘to stream- line and fully automate the credit origina- tion, underwriting and monitoring process for corporates, SMEs and financial institu- tions’, according to the vendor. Meanwhile, Warsaw-based Algoteque


has become Axe Finance’s strategic sales and implementation partner for the Polish market. Algoteque describes itself as a ‘pri- vately held boutique IT consultancy firm’ that works with banks, financial institutions and large corporates.


Axe Finance and Axe Credit Portal (ACP): a brief file Axe Finance emerged in the mid-2000s, set up by two specialists in the risk manage- ment space. It was initially a consultancy firm in the lending automation space, but the founders saw a niche in the market, which led to the creation of ACP. What sets ACP apart from the rest, the


vendor states, is the new technology (the system was developed in 2008) and mod- ern, user-friendly interface and processes. It is available on the Microsoft Win-


dows Azure cloud as well as an onsite deployment.


10 The first customer came in 2009, in the


shape of state-owned Société Tunisienne de Banque (STB) in Tunisia. Axe Finance’s system covers both retail and corporate operations across the entire bank (HQ and 135 branches). There are around 20 users of ACP


today. These are concentrated in Africa (Tunisia, Morocco and Nigeria) and the Middle East.


Customers include: • Access Bank (Nigeria) uses ACP for its corporate and retail operations;


• Sterling Bank (Nigeria) runs it for retail; • First City Monument Bank (Nigeria) – corporate business;


• Commercial Bank of Qatar (Qatar) – cor- porate business;


• Ajman Bank (UAE); © IBS Intelligence 2015 www.ibsintelligence.com


• National Bank of Oman (Oman); • Bank Aljazira (Saudi Arabia). There is a strict policy of adhering to


a single version of the system for all cus- tomers. ACP is back-end agnostic, supports


conventional and Islamic finance and the implementation typically takes four to eight months, according to the vendor. Modules include credit application, limit management, collateral and risk man- agement, collections, provisions, portfolio monitoring and credit workflow/document management. Axe Finance claims that ACP is one of


the very few (if any) systems in the market today that can ‘adequately address’ both operational and analytical requirements of lending institutions.


Tanya Andreasyan


Tunis, Tunisia, home of Axe Finance © Dacoslett, Wikipedia


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