In the sprawling archipelago of Indonesia, where millions of borrowers navigate the rhythms of debt and repayment, a quiet transformation has taken root inside one of the country's largest consumer finance companies. Adira Finance has spent three years replacing the human voice on collection calls with an artificial one — not to diminish the conversation, but to scale it. The partnership with AI Rudder reflects a broader reckoning in financial services: that the work of persuasion, once thought irreducibly human, can now be delegated to machines that listen, adapt, and respond with enough warm
Adira Finance Cuts Costs With AI Voice Technology in 3-Year Partnership
AI should empower people and improve human performance—not replace people
Mark
When Adira Finance decided to automate loan payment reminders, what problem were they actually trying to solve? Just cost, or something else?
Mimi
Both, but they're connected. Collections departments are labor-intensive—you need people making calls all day, and they can only reach so many customers. By automating with voice AI, Adira could reach more people, more consistently, without proportionally increasing headcount. But the real win is that the AI doesn't get tired or frustrated. It makes the same persuasive call the same way every time.
Mark
Does the AI actually persuade people better than a human would?
Mimi
The source doesn't claim that. It says the AI encourages customers to "fulfill their financial obligations more consistently." That could mean the consistency itself—the fact that every call happens, on time, every time—matters more than the quality of persuasion. A human might miss calls or be inconsistent. The AI never is.
Mark
There's a quote about AI empowering people rather than replacing them. Do you believe that's what's happening here?
Mimi
It's the official story, and it may be true for some roles. But in collections specifically, fewer people are needed to handle the same volume of work. That's the definition of replacement, even if it's gradual. The company isn't saying they fired collectors—they're saying they reduced costs. Those are related.
Mark
Why does it matter that this partnership has lasted three years?
Mimi
Because most AI pilots fail or stay small. Three years suggests the technology actually works, the economics make sense, and both companies are confident enough to expand it. That's when you know it's not just a press release—it's becoming infrastructure.
Mark
What's the significance of moving toward large language models next?
Mimi
It means more natural conversations. Right now the AI follows patterns—it recognizes what a customer says and responds from a set of options. LLMs can generate novel responses, adapt to unexpected questions, sound more genuinely conversational. It's the difference between a chatbot and something that feels almost human.
Der Puls
- Adira Finance faced a fundamental tension — its collections operation needed to reach millions of borrowers consistently, but hiring enough humans to do so was neither efficient nor scalable.
- The deployment of AI Rudder's voice technology introduced a system capable of conducting natural, two-way loan reminder calls in customers' preferred languages, handling volumes no human team could match.
- Three years in, the results are concrete: operational costs have fallen, late payments have declined, and the company has achieved collection consistency that traditional staffing models could not deliver.
- Concerns about automation displacing workers linger in the background, with AI Rudder's Indonesia chief insisting the technology is designed to empower employees rather than eliminate them.
- Adira Finance is now moving beyond voice automation toward large language models, signaling that this is not a cost-cutting experiment but a permanent architectural shift in how the company engages customers.
In the sprawling archipelago of Indonesia, where millions of borrowers navigate the rhythms of debt and repayment, a quiet transformation has taken root inside one of the country's largest consumer finance companies. Adira Finance has spent three years replacing the human voice on collection calls with an artificial one — not to diminish the conversation, but to scale it. The partnership with AI Rudder reflects a broader reckoning in financial services: that the work of persuasion, once thought irreducibly human, can now be delegated to machines that listen, adapt, and respond with enough warmth to move people toward action.
Adira Finance, one of Indonesia's largest consumer finance companies, has spent three years quietly transforming its collections operation — the department responsible for reminding customers about overdue loan payments. Rather than expanding its human call center workforce, the company partnered with AI Rudder, a Singapore-based firm, to deploy voice AI technology capable of conducting natural, two-way conversations with borrowers at scale.
The system uses natural language processing and machine learning to call customers when payments are due, explain their situation, and guide the conversation toward resolution — all without a human agent involved. The results have been measurable: lower operational costs, improved collection rates, and a reduction in late payments that benefits both the company's risk profile and, in theory, customers who might otherwise fall further behind.
Nyoman Riyanto, who leads collections at Adira Finance, described the partnership as essential to the company's forward momentum, pointing to a continued commitment to innovation and AI-driven improvement. Michael Ignetius Kauw, who oversees AI Rudder's Indonesia operations, was careful to frame the technology not as a replacement for workers but as a tool to enhance human performance — a distinction that carries weight in a country where automation in financial services raises real employment concerns.
Founded in 1990 and now majority-owned by Bank Danamon under the MUFG Group umbrella, Adira Finance represents the kind of established institution that might have been expected to move cautiously on automation. Instead, it is deepening its investment, with plans to adopt large language models for even more personalized customer interactions. What distinguishes this story is not the adoption of AI itself — that is now routine in financial services — but the fact that a three-year partnership has proven durable enough to expand, suggesting the company views AI not as a temporary fix but as foundational infrastructure for competing in an increasingly digital financial landscape.
Adira Finance, one of Indonesia's largest consumer finance companies, has spent the last three years quietly reshaping how it talks to customers who fall behind on loan payments. The tool doing the work is not a person sitting at a desk with a phone, but an artificial intelligence system built by a Singapore-based company called AI Rudder—one that can conduct natural, two-way conversations in the language customers prefer, understand what they're saying, and respond in ways that feel human enough to actually persuade people to pay what they owe.
The partnership began more than three years ago as Adira Finance sought to modernize its collections operation, the department responsible for reminding customers about overdue payments. Rather than hiring more staff to make calls, the company deployed AI Rudder's voice technology to automate the process. The system uses natural language processing and machine learning to handle millions of interactions daily, each one tailored to sound conversational rather than robotic. When a customer's payment is due, the AI Voice Agent calls them, explains the situation, and works through the conversation to encourage payment—all without a human on the other end.
The results have been measurable. By automating these reminder calls, Adira Finance has reduced operational costs while simultaneously improving collection rates. Late payments have become less frequent, which means less risk for the company and, in theory, less financial strain on customers who might otherwise fall further behind. The technology has also allowed Adira Finance to reach customers more consistently and at scale—something that would have required hiring significantly more staff to achieve through traditional means.
Nyoman Riyanto, who heads the collections function at Adira Finance, described the partnership as essential to the company's future. "Innovation, technology, and continuous improvement must always move forward," he said in a statement. The synergy between his department and AI Rudder, he added, would continue to be critical as the company explored even more advanced AI capabilities. Adira Finance is now planning to adopt large language models—the same technology powering systems like ChatGPT—to make these conversations even more natural and personalized.
Michael Ignetius Kauw, who runs AI Rudder's Indonesia operations, emphasized that the goal was never to eliminate human workers but to enhance what they could do. "AI should empower people and improve human performance—not replace people," he said. This framing matters in a country where automation in financial services raises legitimate concerns about employment. The partnership, in this telling, is about doing more with existing resources rather than doing away with them entirely.
Adira Finance itself is a substantial player in Indonesia's financial landscape. Founded in 1990 as an automotive lender, it expanded into motorcycle financing and went public on the Jakarta Stock Exchange in 2004. It is now majority-owned by Bank Danamon, which is itself part of the MUFG Group, a major Japanese financial conglomerate. The company's embrace of AI voice technology signals how even established, publicly traded financial institutions in Southeast Asia are moving to automate customer-facing operations.
What makes this partnership noteworthy is not that it happened—AI automation in financial services is now routine—but that it has persisted and expanded over three years. Most pilot projects either fail or remain small experiments. This one has apparently proven durable enough that Adira Finance is planning to deepen its investment in AI, moving toward even more sophisticated systems. The company sees AI not as a temporary cost-cutting measure but as foundational to how it will compete in a digital financial services market where speed, scale, and personalization are increasingly the price of entry.
Bemerkenswerte Zitate
Innovation, technology, and continuous improvement must always move forward. The synergy between Adira Finance and AI Rudder is extremely important, as AI technology will continue to play a key role in enhancing our customer experience.— Nyoman Riyanto, Head of Desk Collection at Adira Finance
AI should empower people and improve human performance—not replace people.— Michael Ignetius Kauw, Country Manager of AI Rudder Indonesia
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