Kuwait Credit Bank
Background
Kuwait Credit Bank (KCB) is a public institution with an independent legal presence under the supervision of the
Minister of State for Housing Affairs, established per decree No. (81) for year 2007. The Bank has a Board of Directors
with decision-making power and is responsible for the policies, strategies and direction of the bank, as well as
supervising the execution of these policies.
The Bank provides the following services for citizens:
-
Individual Loans against guaranteed mortgages for the purpose of building, repairing or increased utilization
of private residence.
-
Loans to beneficiaries of government housing for the purpose of reconstruction or expansion of those houses, and
to establish privately-owned floors or to increase utilization of space.
- Easy Marriage Loans
- Ownership or manipulation of personal property.
-
Establishment of companies that do business related to the purposes of the bank or to participate in the
foundation.
- Invest surplus funds in all aspects of guaranteed investments.
- The Bank may borrow from the government amounts that may not exceed twice the paid-up capital.
- The Bank may also issue Loan Bonds and decide its terms and the method of consumption via a decree.
Business Needs & Challenges: On-Site Inspection
Citizens apply for a plethora of construction-related loans at Kuwait Credit Bank (KCB). For example, a citizen
may apply for a loan to renovate a house, extend an existing house or to construct a new house. In turn, KCB
evaluates the loan request and either approves or rejects the loan request. For approved loan requests, KCB
will only release part of the loan amounts, based on whether the construction work is progressing according to
plan or not. To determine the level of progress, KCB utilizes its engineering resources to perform on-site
inspections.
During an inspection, an engineer visits the site, evaluates the progress, estimates the invested amounts on
renovations and/or construction and writes a report. If the progress is considered acceptable, KCB releases the
amount stated in an engineer’s report.
The on-site inspection works completely offline and uses mostly manual procedures. The only time an engineer is
in contact with the Line-of-Business application at KCB is when he takes a new list of inspection tasks, or
when he needs to write the report. This approach has several challenges:
-
The timespan between the actual inspection and system update is long. This occasionally forces the need
for additional inspections.
- The absence of pictures taken from an on-site visit does not help when there are any claims or disputes.
-
Engineers do not get any updates from the Line-of-Business application until they visit the office and
connect to the system. If there were any last minute updates, engineers will not be informed in a timely
manner.
-
The manager of the engineers schedules does not have any proof that an engineer has already visited the
site. Due to the belated system updates, the manager has no insight into the progress of daily tasks.
Characteristics of a viable solution
A viable solution that would address the above challenges should be capable of the following:
- Provide the engineers with a mobile application that they can use while on-site.
- Collect inspection tasks from the Line-of-Business application in a timely manner.
-
Allow the engineer to capture pictures of the on-site visit, enter a report of the progress and save the
results while online and/or offline.
- Helps reduce the amount of work, data entry errors and time required to perform the actual site visit.
-
Provides management with insight on the progress of inspection tasks, location of inspections and the ability
to re-assign the tasks to other resources as necessary.
Solution
KCB teamed with Sharper Software to develop a Mobile,
On-Site Inspection Application. KCB selected a
ragged, heat and water resistant Windows Tablet, the Panasonic FZ-G1 device. Sharper Software developed the Windows
Store application that connects to KCB's Core Banking solution and provides the following capabilities to the
inspection engineers:
-
While Online, synchronizes inspection data with the bank's Core Banking Solution. The device need not be at the
Bank's premises, as this operation may happen on the road using mobile Internet.
-
Allows the Inspection Manager to assign inspection tasks to engineers. An Engineer may accept the assignment or
request reassignment of the task.
-
If an Engineer accepts an inspection task, the details of the citizen are shown, in addition to the details of
the loan and a map to the location. This helps the Engineer reach the citizen and the site more effectively. The
solution is also location-aware using GPS technology, allowing tracking of the process.
-
One on-site, the Engineer will get a list of items to inspect. For every item inspected, the Engineer may attach
one or more pictures taken using the device's built-in camera. Using GPS, the location and timestamp of the
operation is stored automatically, providing further proof of the inspection results.
-
The Engineer may write any additional notes about the inspection and specify the amount s/he estimates would be
adequate for the progress of the project.
-
Inspection data gets synchronized back with the Core Banking solution whenever the device is online. If the device
is offline for any reason, data is stored securely on the device, awaiting the next available online state.
