Nationwide was seeking to boost the performance of the application risk models it uses to approve existing customers for unsecured loans. Recognising industry concerns around the transparency of some AI-based modelling techniques, it wanted to understand how Archetype, Jaywing’s proprietary AI-based modelling software, performed compared to other approaches.
Assessing the performance of Archetype against traditional linear regression showed that Archetype was able to generate a 6% uplift in the predictive power of the model, offering huge potential for reductions in bad debt or an increase in acceptance rates. The results were comparable with other AI-based modelling approaches, and the Archetype models were backed by Jaywing’s ability to control the neural network and explain the resulting model.
“Archetype clearly represents a powerful alternative in building credit scores. We were impressed by the ease of use, the rapidly-realised benefits and the ability to enforce intuitive behaviour on key variables in neural networks.”
Matthew Jones, Head of Retail Modelling at Nationwide
As Archetype offers the analyst control over how the input variables are used, automatically producing charts and outputs which explain how the model behaves, it was easy for Jaywing to provide Nationwide with a view of the most influential variables in the model and demonstrate how each data input had contributed to the overall performance. And with governance taking a key role in the design of the models, Archetype enables lenders to deploy better, compliant models, more frequently, and with less effort.
