Research Paper: Artificial Intelligence to Enhance the SME Ecosystem in the UAE

The ADGMA Research Centre in collaboration with the Asian Institute of Digital Finance (AIDF) at the National University of Singapore engaged in research exploring how big data and artificial intelligence can be leveraged to develop a more informative credit model to support the UAE SME ecosystem and drive improved decision making when lending to SMEs.

Most countries in the world rely heavily on the activities of SMEs as the backbone of their economies. More than 705 million people were employed by more than 322 million formal SMEs in 2020. While several studies have been carried out to demonstrate how big data analysis and artificial intelligence can be applied to promote the SME ecosystem in the UAE, this study shows that by using the concept of federated learning, data sharing among creditors can contribute to developing credit models that are more accurate. The algorithms can more accurately and affordably assess borrowers’ creditworthiness, which will enhance financiers’ low-risk appetite for doing business with SMEs.