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Berry: demo start

How it works

Every decision is made by deterministic rules that are unit tested. The same file always gets the same answer, and every answer is explained in plain language. AI never sets a limit, a price or an approval.

Reading cash flow

Berry reads twelve months of synthetic transactions in an FDX-inspired format. Transfers between the applicant's own accounts are set aside, and a bounced payment cancels against its reversal so it isn't counted twice; the bank's fee stays as a real cost. From that it measures:

  • average and median monthly income, spending and cash left over;
  • how much income varies month to month (coefficient of variation) and its recent trend;
  • days of spending the balance covers, bounced payments in 90 days and 12 months, and existing loan payments;
  • debt service coverage: cash available for all debt payments divided by those payments, including the new one.

Income is classed as salaried, pension, gig, seasonal (the best three consecutive months bring at least 50% of a year's income), invoice-based (mostly direct client payments, a few a month), steady business, or irregular. Revolving credit is assessed at 3% of the limit per month (a setting in each lender's policy) Illustrative.

How each lender decides

Each lender is a thin rule layer over the same measurements. Its limits, rates and thresholds live in configuration, shown here exactly as the engine uses them. Every value is Illustrative: chosen to make three lending styles visible, not taken from any real institution.

Northgate Credit Union

Weighs membership (tenure, products held and deposits). Reads seasonal income over a whole year and sizes a seasonal line so peak-season surplus repays it. Gives thin-file members with steady pay a starter limit. Strong members can be approved slightly below the standard coverage minimum; that approval moves up one authority tier. Every approval names who signs off.

Minimum debt service coverage
1.20x
Coverage minimum for strong members
1.10x
Relationship score counted as strong
0.6 of 1
Years of membership for full tenure credit
5
Peak-season surplus must cover a seasonal line
1.25x
…for strong members
1.15x
Most bounced payments allowed in 90 days
2
With recent bounces, limit capped at months of net cash flow
4
Highest card utilization allowed
90%
Unsecured revolving limit for non-members
$2,000
Starter limit for thin-file members
$2,000
Credit history under this many months is a thin file
12 months
Revolving credit assessed at this share of the limit each month
3%
Limits under $10,000 round down to steps of
$500
Limits under $50,000 round down to steps of
$1,000
Larger limits round down to steps of
$5,000
Relationship score: weight on years of membership
50%
Relationship score: weight on products held
30%
Relationship score: weight on deposits
20%
Products held for full product credit
3
Seasonal operating line term
12 months

Who signs off

  • Member Service Representative: up to $10,000
  • Lending officer: up to $50,000
  • Branch Manager: up to $250,000
  • Credit Committee: above that

Policy version 1, effective 2026-10-01

Kite

Cash flow only: no relationship factors. Sizes limits on the median month, so a few big months can't inflate them. Hard cut-offs on recent bounced payments and on months where more goes out than comes in. Doesn't structure around seasons, so a seasonal request gets a standard line instead.

Minimum months of account history
3
Most bounced payments allowed in 90 days
1
Highest card utilization allowed
90%
Minimum coverage, measured on the median month
1.30x
Personal revolving limit, in median months of net cash flow
4.5x
Business revolving limit, in median months of net cash flow
2x
Assessed payment may use at most this share of the median month
50%
Starter cap for thin files without a foreign report
$1,000
Credit history under this many months is a thin file
12 months
Revolving credit assessed at this share of the limit each month
3%
Limits under $10,000 round down to steps of
$500
Limits under $50,000 round down to steps of
$1,000
Larger limits round down to steps of
$5,000

Policy version 1, effective 2026-10-01

Aspen Bank

Fixed thresholds checked in order, and a decline lists every one that failed. Approvals come with a documentation checklist and standard conditions. Gig and invoice-based income is referred for two years of tax returns.

Minimum months of account history
12
Minimum months of Canadian credit history
24
Highest income variability (CV) allowed
0.35
Minimum debt service coverage
1.25x
Most bounced payments allowed in 12 months
1
Highest card utilization allowed
90%
Revolving credit assessed at this share of the limit each month
3%
Limits under $10,000 round down to steps of
$500
Limits under $50,000 round down to steps of
$1,000
Larger limits round down to steps of
$5,000

Policy version 1, effective 2026-10-01

Results on 37 planted test cases are published under Test results.

What it deliberately ignores

No decision uses any of these. They are kept out of the engine's input entirely:

  • Name
  • Age and date of birth
  • Gender
  • Nationality and immigration status
  • Postal code and province

One input can track nationality: a foreign credit report. Programs cover only some countries, so whether a report exists depends on where someone has lived. Berry uses only the report's rating (good or better counts as credit history), never the country.

A test hands the engine every applicant with these fields shuffled and checks that no decision changes; it was checked by planting a bias and watching the test fail. A large cash deposit is flagged for FINTRAC review but is never a credit factor, and a test proves the decision is the same with or without the flag.

Verification and the friction trade-off

Identity and business checks are simulated on synthetic data, against a fictional watch list and registry. Of 14 applicants, 12 clear automatically in seconds and 2 go to a person: one for a near-match on the watch list and one for an overdue annual filing. A manual review takes hours, which is why the goal is to send people only the cases that need judgment.

Money movement

Every approved loan is serviced in a simulation that runs from funding to the end of December 2027. Money is kept in a double-entry ledger in whole cents: every entry's debits equal its credits, entries are never edited, and corrections are reversing entries. Funding goes by AFT (next business day), Interac e-Transfer, or the Real-Time Rail, which is simulated in Berry (it launches in phases from Q4 2026); instant rails need a simulated account check first.

Repayments are pre-authorized debits. When one is returned unpaid, Berry follows a playbook based on the Payments Canada return reason (Standard 007, checked October 12, 2026): an NSF return is retried once, on the borrower's next payday where possible, and never inside the 2-business-day window in which their bank could charge another NSF fee; an account problem means asking for new banking details instead. Repeated returns bring a hardship offer, and a loan still unpaid 120 days after a missed payment is charged off (configurable) Illustrative.

A seasonal operating line is a limit, not a lump sum. The borrower spends its own cash first, and the line is drawn only to keep one month's average spending in the account Illustrative, sized from the borrower's own past year. Interest is charged only on what's drawn, and the line is repaid from peak-season sales. In the base scenario Hollis Family Farm draws about half its limit at peak; the rest is headroom for a poor harvest or a price drop.

Berry's lenders charge no fee of their own for a returned payment; the simulation shows what the borrower's bank charges. The NSF fee rules in force since March 12, 2026 (a $10 cap, one fee per 2 business days, none when overdrawn by less than $10) apply to personal accounts at federally regulated banks, so Berry applies them only there. Provincially regulated credit unions set their own fees: for borrowers who bank at one, Berry uses an illustrative fee, labelled “provincially regulated — fee illustrative”.

Foreign credit reports and the credit-building path

Some newcomers can bring credit history with them: foreign credit report programs import history from a limited set of countries (for example, India was first in Equifax Canada's program). This planted applicant has a thin Canadian file but history from a covered country. Switch the report off to see how much each lender's answer depends on it.

Newcomer with credit history from a country covered by foreign credit report programs, and a thin Canadian file. Asking for a credit card of $3,000, with 4 months of Canadian credit history.

Northgate Credit Union
Approved

$2,000

For new customers we start unsecured credit at up to $2,000.

Kite
Approved

$3,000

After your current bills, you'd have about 17.32x what the new payment needs.

Aspen Bank
Approved

$3,000

After your current bills, you'd have about 20.82x what the new payment needs.

Many newcomers come from countries no program covers yet. For them, Berry's credit-building path fills the gap foreign credit reports don't cover: a starter limit sized on steady cash flow, and milestones (six on-time payments for a limit review; twelve months for an unsecured line) shown on the applicant's file. Daniel's file shows it.

Known limitations, and what would change in production

  • All applicants, institutions, accounts, watch lists and registries are synthetic or fictional. No real bank, bureau or identity service is connected.
  • Rates, limits, thresholds and authority tiers are illustrative. A real lender would calibrate them on its own loss history and risk appetite.
  • The accuracy score shows the engine applies its stated policies; expectations and engine share an author, so it says nothing about real credit performance.
  • The AFT file is ASCII, not EBCDIC, and isn't for submission; payment type codes from Standard 007 were not checked.
  • Business days skip weekends and nine federal holidays the clearing systems are commonly published as closing on; Payments Canada's own calendar for 2026–2027 could not be read, so the holiday calendar is illustrative.
  • Servicing is simulated: settlement and return timing, retry policy by return reason, interest accrual and the credit union NSF fee are illustrative.
  • Three provinces' credit union deposit insurance limits could not be read from the official sites and are shown as Illustrative.
  • In production: real consented data, after accreditation under the consumer-driven banking framework, bureau data alongside cash flow, model monitoring, adverse-action notices reviewed by compliance, and human review of referrals and exceptions.