Product by trade
Problem Solver
Always Learning
To
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Asaf Ahmad Shayaan, Senior Product Manager for Lending & AI
Engineer turned product manager, with around five years in banking technology. Five production AI capabilities shipped into a live lending platform. A USD 1M+ deal closed end-to-end. I build credit products for banks and NBFCs across India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and the Middle East, and I consult and mentor on the side.
- Loan Origination
- AI Products
- Rule Engine
- Java · Python · SQL
- APIs & Architecture
- Pre-Sales
✈ AIRCRAFT
🎮 FIFA
Design · Deliver
Lending & AI Expertise
Deep product experience across the full lending lifecycle, from lead to disbursement to collections, with AI built into the workflow rather than bolted on.
AI in Lending
Own the AI product roadmap for an enterprise lending platform. Use-case discovery with credit and risk teams, requirement definition, prioritisation and adoption after go-live, with PII-risk handling designed into every component.
Loan Origination Systems
End-to-end LOS strategy, architecture and implementation. Three years building FinnOne Neo for a Middle Eastern bank, then five concurrent LOS roll-outs for global clients as a product manager.
Business Rule Engine
Configurable credit policy as rules, not code: eligibility and knock-out checks, scorecards, deviation matrices, approval hierarchies and pricing grids that business users maintain without a release cycle.
MSME & SME Underwriting
Automated credit appraisal, CAM generation and report generators with model formulation and parameterisation, built to cut manual decisioning time for credit teams.
Straight-Through Processing
End-to-end STP journeys for existing-to-bank customers across multiple product nuances, targeting a 90% reduction in turnaround time from application to decision.
Pre-Sales & Deal Ownership
Closed a USD 1M+ deal independently from proposal to signed contract. Authored 15+ proposals representing a USD 7M+ pipeline. Discovery workshops with CXOs across India, Bhutan and Sri Lanka.
Collections
Ideated and formulated a Loan Collections module and converted the idea into a signed deal within two months. Delinquency buckets, allocation, follow-up workflows and settlement journeys.
Digital Onboarding & KYC/KYB
Upgraded the digital onboarding channel to cut clicks-to-complete by 30%. KYC and KYB journeys, document capture, collateral management and the full lead-to-disbursement lifecycle.
UX, Delivery & Adoption
User research and UX revamps targeting 20% faster TAT and 30% faster implementations. Training, hyper-care and handover artefacts that let client operations teams self-serve 95% of tasks within 30 days.
Five AI Products in Production
Each of these runs inside live lending workflows today, replacing manual effort for credit analysts, relationship managers and operations teams.
CRO Agent
AI-generated credit appraisal commentary across multiple SME risk dimensions, replacing manual analyst write-ups inside the decisioning flow.
Impact Analyst write-ups automatedAI Bank Statement Analyzer
Automated statement spreading and borrower analysis with PII-risk controls designed into the data flow.
Impact 10% TAT reductionAI Financial Statement Reader
Automated extraction and interpretation of borrower financial statements under the same PII controls.
Impact 10% TAT reductionAI Document Analyzer
Triangulates information across multiple document sources in the loan processing cycle so relationship managers stop reconciling by hand.
Impact 20% RM TAT reductionAI Chatbot for Loan Data & Policy
Natural-language interface that lets operations teams query live loan data and policy guidelines without analyst support.
Impact Self-serve answers for opsTechnical Enough to Build It, Product Enough to Ship It
I spent three and a half years as a software engineer before I became a product manager. The craft I use every day is not tied to lending, it just happens to be where I have used it most.
I read the code, the schema and the API contract
Core Java, SQL and Python are working tools, not resume keywords. As an engineer I built a parsing engine that cut data migration from a day to ten minutes, a debugging UI that cut development time 90%, and a three-tier environment design that cut performance defects 70%.
- System architecture and API integration design
- Data models, SQL and migration tooling
- Agile delivery from inside the engineering team
- This site, vibe-coded with Claude Code
The method is domain-agnostic
Discovery with the people who do the work, requirement definition, prioritisation, Agile delivery, adoption after go-live and AI use-case design are the same job in a payments app, a logistics platform or a SaaS tool. Lending taught me the method under regulation, which is the hard setting.
- 0 to 1 products: collections module from idea to signed deal in two months
- AI products in production, with PII and risk designed in
- Pre-sales, proposals and CXO workshops
- Research-led UX and onboarding redesign
Skills & Tools
Latest Learnings
Articles on product management, AI in lending and what I take from the books I read.
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Consultancy & Mentoring
Independent advice for teams building or buying lending technology, and mentoring for people building a career in product.
Lending Systems, AI & Credit Product Advisory
LOS and LMS selection, AI use-case discovery and build-versus-buy, MSME underwriting journeys, collections, fintech due diligence and pre-sales support for banks, NBFCs, fintechs and vendors.
- Lending systems strategy, architecture and rule engines
- AI in lending: from use case to production
- Credit product strategy and TAT reduction
- Fintech due diligence for investors and lenders
Product Management & Fintech Career Mentoring
I moved from engineering to product, through SPJIMR, into owning an AI roadmap. I mentor people making the same moves: transition into product, break into fintech, or sharpen the craft once there.
- Engineer to product manager transitions
- Lending and fintech domain coaching
- Resume, interview and positioning reviews
- Early-career and B-school guidance
Drop me a line
Appreciation, a question, a disagreement, a book I should read, a problem you are stuck on, or just hello. No form to fill, no account. It lands straight in my inbox.