Covid-19 / Klodi Berberi: Technological investments of the financial institution NOA, in support of business financing in times of pandemic

In an interview with the media, Mr. Klodi Berberi, Director of the Operations Department at the financial institution NOA, said that the application of good solutions in Information Technology is an investment that resists difficult times and creates advantages.

He spoke about the impact of these investments and the facilitation that the Information Systems Infrastructure has given to the institution by quickly adapting to the changes and needs of clients even during the pandemic period.

How did technology affect your activity as a financial institution during the Covid-19 pandemic?

At NOA, special attention has always been paid to the implementation of advanced solutions in terms of the technology we apply to serve the business. It is precisely because of this constant attention to new technologies, that the sudden and difficult situation created by the Covid-19 pandemic, found NOA well prepared in this regard. On the one hand, we managed to continue our lending activity quite normally, enabling our employees to work remotely very quickly. This support to business needs and operations was achieved by technologically adapting our operations, in record time I would say, since the first days of the ban on free movement. On the other hand, this adaptation enabled the access and processing of almost all customer and company data. This was especially vital for those clients affected by the pandemic who had expressed the need to reschedule their loans.

There are more than 3,200 such clients, whose cases have been processed in a very short period of time. Imagine the load that such a volume of work would represent for each company. It is double the requirements that are normally handled, and over 80% of the processing of these cases are accomplished by working remotely.

This high technological level of NOA, comes thanks to the permanent strategy of the institution to support the development of business on advanced technological solutions that reliably guarantee the activity even in times of crisis, or the digitalization of documents and business processes. This strategy has been accomplished through significant investments in technology, and in building a highly professional and motivated team, always being promoters of innovative ideas. This investment in advanced technological solutions not only creates business convenience in situations like the one we just went through, but also offers opportunities in terms of increasing the range of products offered, more flexibility for our customers, process automation, increased reach geographically without increasing the number of physical branches, as well as communicating with digitized information for faster and safer decision making. Above all, the combination of the factors mentioned above creates the opportunity for a quick and easy service for each of our clients, regardless of whether it is located in urban or rural areas, whether it is a farmer, or a commercial, manufacturing or tourism business.

It is precisely the combination between the investment in technology, the professionalism of our employees and the high capacity in digital information processing, that created the possibility that in a very short time the company switch to remote operation for all operations.

NOA has recently started a partnership with EasyPay. What innovations does this bring to the customers?

The challenges of the pandemic period not only did not stop us from developing innovative technological solutions to adapt to the situation, but also motivated us to implement new solutions. Changing communication with our customers due to the ban on free movement pushed us to implement a new partnership with an important partner for our journey such as EasyPay. In a record time we developed the relevant information system that enabled every NOA customer to repay payments in real time at EasyPay agencies, without having to appear at our branches. The two central data processing systems EasyPay and NOA already interact in real time to make the payment, as it was done at each NOA branch. Through this collaboration we go even closer to our customers by extending our presence with over 430 EasyPay service points, thus saving precious time and convenience in service. But, this is only the beginning as the partnership and cooperation between the two companies will continue to expand to other services of value to the market.

What other technological innovations are expected to be introduced in the future and what advantages do they provide for the microfinance clients? 

If we were to list all our investment in terms of innovation, thankfully we would have a lot to say. Therefore, based on the real possibilities and considering those that are concretely planned by the Institution, I would like to mention some of the most important projects which we are further developing. The web-portal "My Account" is one of these ongoing projects, dedicated to the clients of the institution, thus ensuring the performance of as many remote services through the use of the NOA website and specifically their individual account. The services web-portal for the network of business partners is another project that directly affects the strengthening of NOA cooperation with any business that wants to ensure the growth of activity through instalment sales investing in the construction of the technological cooperation platforms as efficiently as possible for both parties. The application of the digital firm in the lending process is another important development in increasing the level of automation and processing of the company. No less important are the other projects in focus of the institution such as: The virtualization and migration of the entire server infrastructure, the implementation of more advanced tablet-based solutions, the automation of the lending process based on Credit Scoring, the implementation of Business Intelligence on data warehouse data etc. 

These projects have been undertaken and are being further developed to provide small businesses, farmers and every NOA client family, an ever faster, higher quality service closer to their needs. Let us not forget that NOA injects every year about 30 million dollars in the Albanian economy that go to creating new jobs and raising productive or living standards. And these are completely private funds which would not be injected into the country's economy otherwise. In this sense, every investment we make in new technologies is an investment that goes to the country's economy, to financial products as accessible as possible for Albanian entrepreneurship and agriculture