Constant wants to reduce the burden finance company call centers are facing nowadays in assisting their customers who are experiencing job losses and income drops because of the coronavirus pandemic.

And the Maine-based financial technology company created a solution powered by artificial intelligence to provide this assistance.

Constant recently launched an AI-powered software platform for banks and non-bank consumer lenders that can provide faster and more accurate decisions about payment deferrals, loan modifications and other workouts.

The company insisted its solution significantly can reduce massive incoming call volume and long wait times caused by COVID-19 financial hardships.

“Millions of Americans have filed for unemployment against the backdrop of $16 trillion of consumer debt,” Constant chief executive officer Catherine Powers said in a news release.

“In response to lost wages, bank and non-bank lenders have directed borrowers to call for payment relief options. With mortgage forbearance requests alone increasing by nearly 2,000 percent, the COVID-19 crisis has shone a spotlight on the lack of preparedness to support hardship relief requests,” Powers continued.

Constant’s platform can evaluates a borrower’s real-time financial situation and provides repayment options and, when appropriate, loan modifications in a matter of minutes, without human intervention.

“Whether a lender or servicer is offering to skip payments or a more complex hardship solution, that effort can take weeks or months with the high volume of incoming requests for help,” Powers said.

“However, our platform can do it in minutes by engaging with the borrower, evaluating real-time, customer-specific information and automatically creating relief options that solve the problem and encourage payment performance – all within investor parameters.”

Constant president and chief operating officer Carissa Robb reflected back on the most recent incident that could compare to what the financial services industry is currently facing in connection with COVID-19.

“During the 2008/09 mortgage crisis, loss mitigation requests aged in queues for months,” Robb said. “Credit scores were damaged, customers were feeling defeated and their willingness to pay was lost.

“Yet, it appears there was little preparation for the next crisis,” Robb continued. “Instead technology investment and innovation focused on increasing credit origination volume, only to transfer the long-term management of these loans to manual servicing teams and antiquated operating systems. Constant is changing this.”

For further information on Constant and its offerings, visit constant.ai.