The global pandemic that began in the spring of 2020 forced many companies to close their doors for customers, and businesses in some sectors remain closed to this day. In order to provide support for affected companies, the Estonian government introduced new support programs.
The programs were to be administrated by the KredEx foundation which now had to quickly create new web-based tools to enable companies to submit both loan and loan-guarantee applications via its self-service environment.
KredEx turned to Uptime to handle the front-end work: not only to create the new web-based application forms and handle the integrations with various state-managed systems, but to also update the design of the self-service system to better match the general design philosophy of the foundation.
“We urgently needed new web forms to receive applications for the new measures and technical solutions to reduce the growing administrative burden on our staff,” said Thomas Lepik, KredEx’s Chief Technology Officer. “The development work was carried out by our long-term partner Uptime, who also helped us harmonize the design of the self-service environment with the new brand image of the foundation.”
The updated self-service portal now allows users to submit all necessary applications and documents in one place, as the technical solution created by Uptime is also integrated with several state-run systems.
For example, the business register is queried via the X-Road, users are identified using the state authentication service (TaRa), and requests and documents can be signed using the state signing service (SiGa).
“The biggest challenge for Uptime was to migrate the signing of applications and documents from DigiDocService to the national signing service, but in the end, we managed it successfully,” said Arigio Somelar, Uptime’s project manager.
The following technologies were used for the project: MS .NET, JavaScript, Survey Project.
KredEx is a foundation set up by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications in 2001 with the aim of providing financial solutions based on the best practices in the world. Over the years, KredEx has become an important link between Estonian financial institutions and borrowers and between exporters and foreign buyers. For companies, KredEx offers loans, venture capital, credit insurance, and state-backed guarantees for faster development and safe expansion into foreign markets.
