"We Focus on Impact"

Germany is far from reaching the target of 400,000 newly constructed housing units per year. A similar phenomenon is occurring in the Netherlands: there, 150,000 new housing units per year are supposed to be built. Indeed, by 2024, two-thirds of these have been realized, including conversions from office to living spaces—a business field that requires innovative financing solutions. Ingage-Aetos is particularly predestined for such complex demands: the non-bank lender brings together domestic and foreign investors with capital seekers on the Dutch residential real estate market. When asked about the key future topics for his company, Chief Investment Officer Irvan Rikwandi immediately names two fundamental transformation drivers: sustainability and digitalization.

AI and Sustainability

"We focus on impact," he begins an extensive explanation, "and that is often not sufficiently addressed by the existing structures, because generally ecological interest discounts in real estate financing are tied to building energy ratings from A to H. However, we consider this insufficient because someone who renovates a property from a G to a B building contributes more than someone who squeezes the last bit out for an A-standard rating. Therefore, Ingage-Aetos grants the same favorable conditions for such an upgrade as for meeting the top criteria – because this has a much greater impact on the Dutch building stock." Similarly, all eyes are also on the possibilities of AI at Ingage-Aetos: "Creditworthiness assessment is still largely a manual process, simply because it is legally prohibited to perform this evaluation purely automatically," explains Irvan Rikwandi. "However, during the term we can now perform automated stress tests to determine the likelihood of defaults under certain changes in the interest rate curve – thus we now manage risks much more reliably and sustainably. In general, technological capabilities are advancing at breakneck speed. Yet while product development can still keep up, regulation significantly lags behind these developments – which is particularly problematic given the strong demand for innovative financial products."