Fujitsu has announced the successful conclusion of a loan portfolio management Proof of Concept (PoC) with Commerzbank’s research and development unit, main incubator GmbH, leveraging the Fujitsu quantum computing-inspired Digital Annealer.

Focusing on receivables from vehicle leasing contracts, the PoC optimised the selection process for a loan portfolio.

Receivables from leasing contracts are sold to investors by car manufacturers in order to optimise their own liquidity management. They are traded by banks, for example, as tradable securities, with bundles categorized by risk profile and other factors.

The Digital Annealer optimised the bundling of receivables, giving customers the ability to fully leverage the potential of securities issued by them.

The PoC focused on the selection optimization of several thousand vehicle leasing assets for a securitization portfolio. Critical factors taken into simultaneous consideration included regulatory requirements, absolute volume limits and percentage limits for specific asset characteristics needed to achieve greater risk diversification.

The resulting highly-complex combinatorial optimization problem would require extremely long compute times utilising classical processors.

In the future, true quantum computers will be capable of processing all combinations simultaneously to find instant results, but are still many years away from commercial viability.

The Fujitsu Digital Annealer provides simultaneous calculation of combinatorial optimisation challenges by leveraging quantum characteristics in a digital architecture, making the PoC possible for main incubator in a business context.

Augustin Danciu, technology expert at main incubator, says: “As the research and development unit of the Commerzbank Group, we selected the Fujitsu Digital Annealer as it allowed us to test whether the current state of this technology is suitable for banking purposes, examined on securitisation optimisation.

“We first encountered the Digital Annealer at Fujitsu’s annual flagship technology conference Fujitsu Forum, where we were investigating future technologies. We moved quickly with Fujitsu to establish a Proof of Concept, and within the first month, achieved very exciting results, which our customers can ultimately benefit from. The benefits provided by the Digital Annealer are very promising.”

Wilhelm Petersmann, vice-president: head of financial services at Fujitsu Central Europe, comments: “The Fujitsu Digital Annealer helps revolutionize business planning by opening up new possibilities for optimizing existing processes.

“Our work with main incubator is the latest proof that there is no longer any need to wait for commercial viability of true quantum computers to deliver instant solutions to complex combinatorial optimisation computations.

“The proof of concept demonstrates that extremely beneficial business outcomes are both practical and rapidly achievable for organizations, like main incubator, with the ability to identify and grasp new optimisation opportunities.”

The Fujitsu Digital Annealer is available as-a-service on a subscription basis, including technical and consulting services, support and optional additional consultancy for solution development. It can be delivered via the cloud or as an on-premises service offering.