To know what’s behind a door you must open it. To open it, you need the right key. To know what’s behind Q-Lana, you’ll need the key to the origin story of Q-lana. The story of Q-Lana begins in the Inca empire, a kingdom developed in the Andes region of South American Indians who, at the time of the Spanish conquest in 1532, ruled an empire that extended from the northern border of modern Ecuador to the Maule River in central Chile. In the Inca Empire there was a village called Qullana. Qullana in Inca mythology means one of the three places where knowledge of the Creation of Earth has been preserved.1 Another story tells us about a wise man called Qullana, whom people in the village come to challenge and learn from. The link between Qullana as a place and Qullana as a person is where Q-Lana comes from: at the crossroads between wisdom, knowledge and experience.
The History of Digitization
Q-Lana is about the collection of information, its aggregation to knowledge, and the dissemination of wisdom. A financial institution collects information from and about clients on a daily basis, through its staff, the client’s own submissions or third parties. This (often qualitative information) can form into a proprietary strength of the institution, leading to better customer-centric services and risk assessment. Q-Lana is structured to facilitate the handling of this information. This is what we call knowledge-based lending. Very often we hear that SME lending is considered a risky business. With the use of Q-Lana, we believe, that financial institutions can leverage their knowledge and experience in the long term to conduct a more successful corporate and SME lending. This is thanks to the combination of human interaction and knowledge, following the concept of the Qullana by the Inca.
How is Q-Lana making a difference?
The company was founded by three partners; Christian Ruehmer, Bharath Kumar and Kurt Vandebroek. They understood the importance of intelligent digitalization, while past digitalization efforts targeted efficiency and cost savings only, the concepts promoted by Q-Lana have customer-centricity and intelligent risk management in focus. Here, the combination of knowledge-based lending and the emphasis on the human side of digital lending play together for the benefit of clients and the financial institution. The latter emphasizes the important role humans can play in a financial institution when routines and standards are automated. This additional capacity can be used to emphasize the direct interaction with clients and this, brings back the idea of a banker serving as an advisor to its clients which can be seen as the authentic role of that profession. The result is a long-term profitable and mutually beneficial relationship, an aspect that is often forgotten under the exclusive pressure of product-related sales targets.
Drawing on his 30 years of experience in banking, investing, and risk management, Christian observed the need for an intelligent tool that compiles and avails contextual information about clients and their environments. The concept of Q-Lana is to offer improved client selection, advanced risk assessment, and monitoring. To achieve this, the platform digitizes the lending and related processes of banking with corporates, SMEs, retail and microfinance clients. This combines with Bharath’s vision of the next generation of software development, low code platforms. Such platforms provide an ideal base for a long-term focused concept of co-development between the service provider and a financial institution’s own team. Software and app development shall become as convenient and common as the use of spreadsheets or presentations.
You can see how we used the concepts of the Qullana, combining wisdom, knowledge and experience with technology for better financial services. With this we shared with you the key to the front door of the Q-Lana. There is much more to discover, about how the concept is applied and advanced. Stay tuned!
