Saudi Arabia’s Agricultural Development Fund has chosen Finastra’s core banking solution, Fusion Essence, for its lending services, reports Antony Peyton of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

The governmental credit institution will use the platform – “traditionally used by banks for retail” – to provide its customers with new services and shorter loan approval times.

Muneer bin Fahad Al-Sahli, general director for Agricultural Development Fund, explains: “It’s crucial for us to offer our clients – farmers and other players in the agricultural space – a seamless digital experience which enables them with their endeavors. With Fusion Essence, we will be able to increase automation through our loan portal, which will lead to reduced timeframes for loan approvals and improved operational efficiencies.”

The fund is specialized in financing various fields of agricultural activity in Saudi Arabia, to develop the sector and increase its productive efficiency.

Its services allow farmers to obtain Shari’ah compliant loans for agricultural machinery and equipment.

The new system is part of the “information technology initiative”, one of the fund’s ten transformation programs, which seeks to achieve the fund’s objectives in line with the Kingdom’s vision for the future.

The fund, which has until now used a legacy system (an “in-house developed system”), aims to go live with the solution within the next year. The system will also enhance the credit risk management practice in the fund.

Back in December 2018, and in another Kingdom, FinTech Futures was at Finastra Universe London 2018– to hear all about the data frontier.

Formed via the merger of D+H and Misys (FinovateEurope 2017) during the summer of 2017, Finastra acquired fellow Finovate alum Malauzai Software in June 2018. The company is headquartered in London, U.K.