Axis Finance Limited (AFL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Axis Bank, has launched Axis Finance Drishti, an in-house Business Rules Engine (BRE) and configurable digital platform designed to transform credit decision-making. The platform targets the retail and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) lending segments, where fast and consistent credit assessments are critical for portfolio growth. Drishti aims to replace manual underwriting with data-driven, automated credit workflows that can process loan applications in near real time.
What Is a Business Rules Engine and How Does Drishti Work?
A Business Rules Engine (BRE) is a software system that applies a predefined set of business rules to incoming data to produce a decision or action automatically. In lending, a BRE takes inputs such as an applicant’s credit score, income, repayment history, and alternative data, then evaluates them against the lender’s credit policy to approve, reject, or flag the application for manual review. It removes human discretion from routine decisions, making the process faster, more consistent, and less prone to bias.
Axis Finance Drishti is built as a configurable digital platform that combines underwriting workflows, data-driven insights, and statistical scorecards into a single engine. The platform supports two modes. In straight-through processing (STP), applications that meet all policy criteria are approved without any human intervention. In assisted credit journeys, the engine pre-screens applications and presents a recommendation to the loan officer, who can review and approve it with full context.
The platform integrates with multiple data sources, including alternative data such as utility payments, GST filings, and bank statement analytics, which helps evaluate borrowers who lack a traditional credit history. This is especially valuable for MSME lending, where many small businesses operate in the informal economy.
Drishti has been deployed initially for four product categories: Personal Loans, Business Loans, Loan Against Property, and Disha Home Loans.
Axis Finance Ltd: The Company Behind Drishti
Axis Finance Limited is a non-deposit accepting non-banking financial company (NBFC-ND) regulated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Axis Bank, which was originally incorporated as UTI Bank in 1993 and began operations in 1994. Axis Bank is India’s third largest private sector bank, headquartered in Mumbai.
AFL operates across three verticals: retail lending, MSME lending, and wholesale lending. Its retail portfolio includes Loan Against Property, Home Loans, Personal Loans, and Business Loans. The MSME vertical focuses on small-ticket corporate loans and collateral-backed lending, especially in non-metro markets. The wholesale lending arm provides corporate loans, structured finance, and real estate financing.
The company’s MD and CEO, Sai Giridhar, has described Drishti as part of a broader effort to build a more agile and analytics-enabled lending ecosystem. Over the past year, Axis Finance has introduced several complementary initiatives, including ABC Scorecards to bring greater objectivity to credit assessments and an AI-assisted quality monitoring framework for collections that promotes fair and transparent customer interactions.
Why Drishti Matters for NBFC Lending in India
Non-banking financial companies play a vital role in India’s credit ecosystem, particularly in segments where traditional banks have limited reach. NBFCs account for a significant share of retail and MSME lending, but they face unique challenges in credit risk management. Manual underwriting is slow, inconsistent, and hard to scale. As lending volumes grow, the risk of NPAs also rises unless credit decisions are backed by robust data analysis.
Drishti addresses these challenges by embedding automated credit workflows and advanced analytics directly into the lending process. The platform enables real-time decision-making and dynamic policy implementation, meaning the lender can update credit rules instantly without waiting for software changes. This is particularly useful in a rapidly changing economic environment where risk parameters need frequent adjustment.
The use of alternative data is another significant feature. Traditional credit bureaus cover only a fraction of India’s borrowing population. By incorporating data from GST filings, bank transactions, and utility payments, Drishti can assess the creditworthiness of first-time borrowers and small businesses that would otherwise be excluded from formal credit.
The Growing Role of Technology in NBFC Operations
Axis Finance is not alone in adopting technology-driven lending. Across the Indian financial sector, banks and NBFCs are investing heavily in rule engines, AI-based underwriting, and digital loan origination systems to reduce turnaround times and operating costs.
The RBI’s scale-based regulation (SBR) framework for NBFCs, introduced in 2021, has also pushed larger NBFCs to strengthen their governance, risk management, and internal controls. Technology investments like Drishti help NBFCs comply with these regulatory expectations while improving efficiency.
Axis Finance’s ‘Grow the Good’ strategy, under which Drishti has been launched, focuses on building a customer-centric, technology-first lending franchise with strong risk discipline. The platform is expected to support sustainable portfolio growth by ensuring that credit expansion does not come at the cost of asset quality.
Key Takeaways
- Axis Finance Drishti is an in-house Business Rules Engine (BRE) and digital platform launched by Axis Finance Limited (AFL) to automate credit decision-making.
- The platform targets retail and MSME lending segments and has been initially deployed for Personal Loans, Business Loans, Loan Against Property, and Disha Home Loans.
- Drishti supports both straight-through processing (STP) for fully automated approvals and assisted credit journeys with pre-screened recommendations.
- Axis Finance Limited is a non-deposit accepting NBFC regulated by the RBI and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Axis Bank, which was incorporated as UTI Bank in 1993.
- The platform integrates alternative data sources such as GST filings and bank transaction analytics to assess borrowers without traditional credit histories.
- Drishti is part of Axis Finance’s ‘Grow the Good’ strategy and follows other recent technology initiatives including ABC Scorecards and an AI-assisted collections quality monitoring framework.
