FDB's AI-Assisted Credit Assessment Pilot — Fiji's State Development Bank Tests AI for Unsecured Lending

Fiji Development Bank (FDB), the state-owned development bank under the Ministry of Finance, Strategic Planning, National Development and Statistics, launched the AI-Assisted Credit Assessment Pilot Project for Unsecured Lending on 13 November 2025 -- described by the Ministry as Fiji's first initiative of its kind. The 12-month pilot is open to existing FDB customers applying through the bank's mobile app and web platform, covering unsecured loans up to FJ$10,000 and secured loans up to FJ$100,000.
The AI model, trained on FDB's historical lending data, analyses behavioural and alternative data to generate credit-assessment insights. Finance Minister Esrom Immanuel told Parliament the system is "designed to assist, not automate": FDB credit officers retain final decision-making authority and must document their rationale when they override an AI recommendation. FDB says the model is monitored on an ongoing basis for discriminatory bias.
Within days of the November 2025 launch, more than 100 existing customers had registered interest through the platform, and the bank reports that applicants can receive a decision in under 24 hours. No independent evaluation of loan-approval rates, default rates or financial-inclusion outcomes has been published; the Minister said the pilot would be tracked against internal key performance indicators, with a full report promised once the 12 months conclude.
The rollout drew scrutiny in Fiji's Parliament. Opposition MP Faiyaz Koya asked whether new regulations had been put in place to cover this "entirely new platform," and Assistant Minister Sakiusa Tubuna pressed the government on concrete measures to prevent data breaches and to ensure applicant data is not exploited by the vendor or hosted on insecure foreign servers. The Minister's response reiterated monitoring commitments but did not detail specific data-protection safeguards, leaving those regulatory questions open as the pilot continues.

Read the full analysis: https://www.fdb.com.fj/fdb-launches-fijis-first-ai-assisted-credit-assessment-pilot/