A voice assistant for borrowers in five languages
A proposal and working demo of an AI voice assistant that lets microfinance borrowers ask about loans, repayments and grievances in their own language, prepared for a microfinance industry body.
- Sector
- Microfinance
- Scope
- Proposal and demo, five languages
- My role
- Solution design and demo build
The problem
Many microfinance borrowers are more comfortable speaking than reading, and prefer their own language. Text apps and English call scripts leave them dependent on a loan officer for simple answers.
The approach
Start from borrower questions
Collect the questions borrowers actually ask: dues, repayment dates, interest, and how to raise a complaint.Build a working demo
Combine speech recognition, a language model and speech output to answer those questions in five languages.Design the guardrails
Limit answers to verified information, hand off to a human when unsure, and log conversations for review.Write the proposal
Set out rollout phases, cost and how member institutions could plug in.
Who it serves
Borrowers
Answers in their own language, at any hour.Member lenders
Fewer routine calls for field staff.The industry body
A shared channel for grievance and financial literacy.
The outcome
A working five-language demo and a rollout proposal presented to the industry body.