Digitizing the Informal Economy.

The "Data Darkness" of the Informal Sector

Providing financing to small businesses in emerging economies is primarily an information problem. In West Africa, 80% of the population operates without formal bank accounts. Market stalls, tailors, and agricultural traders rarely possess formal ledgers.

For decades, microfinance institutions relied on the subjective "gut feeling" of loan officers. This lack of standardization made scaling impossible and risk assessment a game of chance.

Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) for Proxy Data

We did not just build an app. We deployed our Cognitive Foundry to extract how expert micro-lenders verify solvency without a paper trail. We identified heuristic proxies and codified them into the mobile platform.

The "Grid Array" Protocol

Instead of asking for a Balance Sheet, the system prompts Field Agents to collect "Proxy Data" using a structured grid. The deterministic engine then triangulates this into a financial profile.

This allows a loan officer to visit a client, take pictures, and input answers to simple questions. The system auto-generates a P&L statement in real-time, removing subjectivity from the equation.

Hyper-Efficiency in the Field

Formalizing the informal process fundamentally changed the unit economics for Alrahma:

• Extreme Speed: Application creation dropped from hours of manual writing to just 10 minutes on a tablet.
• Instant Disbursal: The time from request to provision dropped to less than four hours.
• Agile Configuration: Using our No-Code configuration, Alrahma adjusted workflows in real-time without needing engineering support.