GovTech News

We are continuing our #CloseUp interview series that present startups and companies successfully creating solutions for the public sector or wellbeing of society.

This week our interviewee is Ilja Šurov, CEO of Fintegry. The company located in Vilnius has created two fully automated platforms for processing business applications for financial state support. We decided to find out more.

What is special about Fintegry tech solution that is meant to facilitate the granting of Lithuania’s support to businesses? In an extremely short period of time Fintegry created two fully automated platforms for processing business applications for state support:

• The financial support measure called „Apmokėtinų sąskaitų paskolos – ASAP“ (eng. Payable account loans),

• A partial rent compensation for the most COVID-19 affected businesses.

Our solution automatically collects data from the State Register of Legal Entities, Scorify, ABALT, State Social Insurance Fund Board, State Tax Inspectorate (STI), and other data sources. Also, it automatically checks if the company is following specific criteria such as:

• economic activity,

• financial rating,

• size,

• whether the company is in difficulty,

• whether it is in compliance with the minimum credit rating,

• whether it has a reliable taxpayer status,

• whether it checks invoice data with STI.

When data is analyzed, the system automatically calculates and evaluates the application and forwards it for further approval and remote contract signing. Our solutions differ from other state support measures because they are automatic – from the applicant identification to the signing of the contract with mobile signature. It saves time for both companies and evaluators because business applications are filled out automatically with the data from public registers. Meanwhile, the evaluator does not have to check the data and compliance with the criteria manually. In the end, the money reaches businesses faster.

I would like to point out that it is not our first project with public sector institutions. We already have collaboration experience with a project of the Bank of Lithuania on the AnaCredit/nPRDB system (commercial banks reporting system).

How Fintegry solution helps to fight COVID-19 crisis? With our solution, money reaches companies faster because the automated solution saves many hours for institutions that are responsible for the state support granting. Lithuania saves money as well because it does not have to hire additional specialists to analyze companies’ data or manually check its reliability. After all, the speed of processes in our current complicated economic situation is crucial.

Why is Fintegry important to the community, how it will help people?

Our solutions ensure that financial support reaches the target companies, the risk of abuse is reduced to a minimum as well as the risk of human error. We are sure that because of the fast and effective decisions, businesses will save many jobs and taxpayers will face a smaller tax burden. To contribute to the remediation of pandemic-caused consequences, Fintegry has not only worked after-work hours and on holidays but also did part of the job at its own expenses. Even though the past few weeks exhausted us greatly, it has also motivated our whole team and our families. We are happy to have contributed.

How this solution could facilitate the work of the public sector?  

Targeted technological solutions implemented in the public sector can significantly reduce manual work, and the number of errors. When these kinds of processes are managed by technologies, it is easier to track the system action history, analyze it, get results quickly and make new decisions. The process is much faster and transparent, and results in the increase of trust in the public sector, both from citizens and companies.

Do you have any tips for other creators who want to work with the public sector?

We are familiar with a prejudice of some businesses that working with the public sector can be difficult with a complex bureaucracy and slow decision-making process standing the way. However, our work during the crisis shed a completely different light on working with the public sector institutions – the decision-making process was fast, and the work was effective.

We all should be interested in creating a better country, therefore in certain situations, itis our duty to work side by side with the public sector and create solutions together.

Businesses themselves should not be afraid to show the initiative, proactively share their insights with the public sector. Of course, as in every project, there were some challenges, but instead of criticising, we chose to work together for the better outcome for all of us. It is amazing to know that our work directly contributes to the prosperity of the country, growth of the economy as well as our business colleagues and competitors’ wellbeing. We all should be interested in creating a better country, therefore in certain situations, it is our duty to work side by side with the public sector and create solutions together.