Our Purpose
SMEs are a key economic sector across GCC with active support from the governments to increase the sector’s contribution to GDP. We at Athena have in-depth understanding of SME eco-system, and coupled with our Digital, Risk Management and Regulatory Guidance capabilities, are in a unique position to provide holistic support to any institution to further their SME aspirations
Our offerings
Short Term Diagnostic Offerings
Short term (3-6 months) advisory on key areas relating to SME Business, for example
- Review of existing SME products, services, and solutions
- Assessment of SME Credit Policy, Credit decisioning framework and Credit processing
- Review of existing system infrastructure and operational processes
- Validation of customer risk-based pricing as well as product-based performance and profitability
- Portfolio stress test and deep dive on vulnerable SME portfolio sectors through data analytics capabilities
- Diagnostics on Collections and Remedial management
- Update on Pandemic impacted SME Portfolio and propose measures to be taken for Senior Management and Board
- Review of Product Offerings
- Assessment of and Recommendation on Customer acquisition strategy
- Review distribution and channel capabilities
- Identify appropriate customer segments and cross sell opportunities
- Develop pro-active retention strategy
- Review of end-end customer onboarding process
- Assessment of collection and remedial processes and effectiveness
- Re-design and enhancement of existing standard documentation
- Evaluation of capacity and productivity
- Review of existing SME Risk system infrastructure
- Identify areas of improvement and recommend robust lending framework
- Detect control weaknesses in on-boarding and on-going account monitoring processes
- Quantitative and qualitative assessment of current staging criteria for Stage 2 and Stage 3 portfolio
- Reviewing the existing Watchlist and Early Alert processes
- Identify customer segments and industries with higher propensity to defaults and implications for future business origination
- Review of existing digital capabilities
- Recommendation on Target Operating Model for successful SME Digitization initiatives
- Recommendation on enhancement of SME credit policies, product principles and risk framework to support lower cost of acquisition via Digital lending platform
- Advisory on digital Supply chain and Receivables financing
- Optimizing SME Liability Management through Digital Solutions
- Identification of customers for migration to pure-play Digital platform
- Predictive analytics and risk tools
