Personalised Loan DNA: The Next Competitive Standard in Digital Lending

By Deepak Bathineedi, on August 29, 2025

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Your customers already have a personalised credit model, but it’s not under your control.

While many lenders are still focused on optimising scorecards, AI-native competitors have already shifted towards real-time, individual-level lending. These lenders are quickly assembling, pricing, and adjusting credit offers in milliseconds.
Key Point: Personalised Loan DNA changes the game. It’s a dynamic, AI-generated financial fingerprint that allows lenders to design, price, and manage credit at the individual level rather than relying on broad segments.

The Borrower’s Financial Fingerprint, Updated in Real Time
Loan DNA is a constantly updated, decision-ready profile that adapts over time, built from consented, multi-source data.

This data includes:

  • Credit history – A complete record of the borrower’s past borrowing and repayment habits.
  • Income and cash-flow patterns – Analysis of income sources and financial behaviour to assess stability.
  • Transaction behaviour – Data about daily financial transactions, highlighting spending habits.
  • Utilities and mobile usage – Insights from utility bills and mobile usage that contribute to understanding the borrower’s financial discipline.
  • Other responsibly governed signals – Additional ethical data sources that help complete the borrower’s profile.

Unlike a static score, Loan DNA gives a deeper and more personalised insight into a borrower’s risk capacity, preferences, and likely outcomes. The result is a fully tailored product, including custom interest rates, limits, tenure, repayment schedules, and features, all assembled in milliseconds.

Personalisation That Pays, For Banks and Borrowers
Personalisation benefits both banks and borrowers, creating a win-win situation.

  • Better performance
  • Inclusion without dilution
  • Operational advantage
  • Regulatory edge

The result is a lending ecosystem where both banks and borrowers experience greater efficiency and fairness.

From Data Signals to Tailored Credit in Milliseconds
Personalised Loan DNA relies on continuous data signals to deliver instant, customised credit solutions.

  • Step 1: Aggregate data with consent.
  • Step 2: Build a behavioural feature fabric to understand the borrower’s actions and preferences.
  • Step 3: Continuously model risk and affordability to ensure dynamic assessments.
  • Step 4: Assemble and price products in real-time.
  • Step 5: Optimise offers as borrower patterns evolve.

This process ensures that credit offers are always in line with the borrower’s current financial situation and prospects.

Early Adopters and High-Impact Segments
Certain groups are already experiencing significant benefits from this advanced approach to lending.

  • Millennials and Gen Z / gig economy earners: Dynamic limits and repayment schedules tailored to variable income streams.
  • SMEs and proprietors: Cash-flow-based underwriting that accounts for receivables, supplier cycles, and point-of-sale data.
  • Rural and underserved markets: Alternative data opens credit access in areas with limited traditional credit data.

These segments are seeing the advantages of a lending model that adapts to their unique financial behaviours.

Trust as a Core Feature, Not an Afterthought
Trust is essential for the success of Personalised Loan DNA, and it must be built into the system from the beginning.

  • Fairness and bias controls
  • Privacy by design
  • Model risk management
  • Regulatory readiness

Trust isn’t an afterthought; it’s embedded throughout the system to ensure fairness and security for both lenders and borrowers.

From Static Products to Living Portfolios
Personalised Loan DNA transforms static lending products into flexible, customer-centric portfolios.

  • Customer-centric economics
  • Continuous pricing
  • Anticipatory care

This shift allows lenders to continuously adapt to the borrower’s evolving financial needs and circumstances.

The Competitive Standard in AI-Native Lending
As AI technology advances and consented data becomes more robust, Personalised Loan DNA will define the competitive edge in lending.

The institutions that win in this new era will blend:

  • Real-time intelligence: Providing precision and adaptability at scale.
  • Real-world governance: Ensuring fairness, compliance, and trust at every step.

Personalisation and prudence are no longer trade-offs. They are now essential co-requirements for success in the digital lending industry.