SMU undergraduates Sherman Lim and Clarrisa Poedjiono jointly developed the first-of-its-kind chatbot – Miyu – during their internship at the Funding Societies. Miyu works round the clock to answer queries that a business owner or an investor may ask about the products and services offered by Funding Societies. Funding Societies is a licensed digital lending platform that connects small-medium enterprises (SMEs) with retail and institutional investors. Future plans for the Chabot includes acting as a virtual relationship manager who can assist SMEs in loan application, initiate video chats with real customer experience managers as well as perform accounting opening and management activities.

"We created Miyu via self-learning with guidance from our seniors. She is different from most other chatbots in the financial services space. Personally, I like that Miyu can escalate to human support whenever required, giving our users a seamless experience," said Mr Lim. Mr Lim, majors in Economics and Strategic Management at SMU while Ms Poedjiono is from the School of Information Systems.