Nikhil Bansal

Project Background:
Credit analysis at OakNorth was done manually, even for less complicated, small-sized loans. This took a lot of time and was not cost-effective.

Proposal:
To develop a digital underwriting tool for buy-to-let investment properties in the UK. The tool allows a credit director to see the property's fair market valuation and rental estimates using 3rd-party data providers for comparable properties, yields, and other valuable metrics.

My role:
I was responsible for understanding the problem statement. Our objective was to explore if we could set up a new revenue line for the bank through buy-to-let investment properties. This required a thorough understanding of the as-is process, mapping it, identifying inefficiencies, and then proposing a solution to remove the inefficiencies.

Challenges:
The major challenge we faced was from internal stakeholders, who were unsure whether such an initiative would work at OakNorth, given the bespoke nature of our lending. We worked with them, addressed many risks raised by teams, and finally agreed to go for a pilot.

Outcome:
The tool helped reduce underwriting time from two days to a few hours. Based on user feedback over three months, we implemented 30+ enhancements.

Project Background:
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.

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

My role:
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.

Challenges:
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.

Outcome:
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.

Project Background:
Internal teams at OakNorth managed assignments to colleagues using Teams messages or Outlook emails. Capacity planning was manual and time-consuming. Managers did not have complete visibility into where things were. SOPs were not always followed.

Proposal:
Set up digital tools to bring the varied workflows together to save time. Leverage 3rd-party integrations to automate workflows and manually reduce time spent doing verifications and validations.

My role:
I wanted to start by better understanding the problem space. My hunch was that many pain points could be removed by having better visibility and logging current tasks. Additionally, there was scope for reducing time spent doing core activities leveraging external APIs. We validated our hypothesis and identified two strategic pillars—one around workflow automation and the other around automation.

Challenges:
Getting CXO approval took some time.

Outcome:
We set up dashboards that provided visibility into what was being worked on and by whom. We also helped the managers understand team capacity by capturing the case complexity and expected completion date. Integrations with external data providers reduced manual data entry and sped up the process.