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Launch of AKPK’s Credit Counseling & Debt Management System
together with Technology partner Datamation (M) Sdn Bhd
Kuala Lumpur, August 26th, 2008 - AKPK transforming to an agile organisation to better support the public. Agensi Kaunseling Dan Pengurusan Kredit (AKPK) is an agency setup by Bank Negara Malaysia in April 2006 to provide financial counselling and debt management to the Malaysian public. As a part of its daily operations AKPK faces many challenges in the fast growing number of individuals seeking financial counselling and assistance.
The Challenges
As part of its daily operations to help individuals address their financial difficulties, an AKPK counsellor reviews the spending habit and existing debts against the customers’ monthly income before a repayment matrix can be formulated. This process involves the customer having to fill up an application form which is subsequently translated into a spreadsheet by the counselor.AKPK counsellors would often liaise with financial institutions over telephony & fax to obtain applicants’ credit information to support the successful enrollment of an applicant into the Debt Management Program. This process was time consuming and was not efficient in supporting AKPK’s overall objective in reducing the turnaround time to process an application.
Once an application is approved, an offer letter is manually prepared and sent to the customer.
The Solution – CCDMS - Automating AKPK’s processes
In Phase 1, Datamation was awarded the project to deploy an enterprise solution capable of improving the processes within AKPK. With that, the Credit Counselling & Debt Management System (CCDMS) was conceived; using a combination of cutting edge technology for document automation and business process management.Together with AKPK, Datamation took on the task of automating the current manual data entry processes that paved the way for data automation. Applicants can now submit an application online via AKPK’s web portal while physical application forms are no longer required to be manually processed by AKPK’s counselors as these forms are fed into a scanner and all vital information are automatically captured into CCDMS. Using business process management technology, workflows were built to manage AKPK’s processes and to directly interchange customer’s credit information with Financial Institutions across the nation electronically.
Centralized systems like CCDMS promote a unified workforce. AKPK Counsellors from any branch can review and assess any case captured by CCDMS as a distribution mechanism will automatically distribute the workload across all users. This further improved the turnaround time in assessing an applicants’ case.
With CCDMS, AKPK customers were provided monthly notification via SMS on payment due date. Counsellors were now able to identify customer payment trend and follow up with cases where payments were either short or not made at all efficiently and accurately.
The Solution – iDMS – end-to-end data automation
In Phase 2, to further complement CCDMS, Datamation implemented ViewWise from Computhink Inc. an integrated Document Management System (iDMS) to provide end-to-end data automation. With iDMS, physical supporting documents provided by the customer are digitised and stored into iDMS. These documents are tagged to the customers profile on CCDMS, allowing counsellors to retrieve them in a matter of seconds at the click of a button. Counsellors no longer require retrieving physical documents; which directly improved their turnaround time to service customers. Every document that is checked in and out of iDMS is audit trailed and controlled by user access rights which eliminated documents potentially being misplaced. Documents stored in iDMS are highly encrypted and with controlled access rights, only authorised AKPK Counsellors will be granted access to search and view these documents. Multiple copies of documents were no longer made and kept by individual counsellors as everything was stored online. As documents are now stored electronically, backup copies can easily be made by AKPK system administrators to auxiliary media and stored securely on site and off site, which safeguards customer’s vital information from being destroyed in an event of any disaster. With the deployment of this end-to-end solution, AKPK now holds the ability to transform its organization to a paper-less, highly productive and efficient environment.About this partnership
Speaking on this occasion, Encik Mohamed Akwal Sultan, CEO of AKPK said, “The Best of Breed Solutions namely; ReadSoft, MetaStorm and Computhink ViewWise had all the functionalities required and met the company’s compatibility requirements, offering an open architecture solution with minimal IT resources. We wanted to integrate a solution with proven results”. Datamation offered the approach we were seeking – providing us with what we wanted to work with as our operation grew.” Speaking on this occasion Mr. Alex S.C. Wee, Founder and Group Managing Director, Datamation (M) Sdn Bhd said, “We are proud to be the technology enabler providing AKPK solutions that streamline the unique & routine processes by empowering its employees to manage & track the entire counseling and financial management services”.
About Agensi Kaunseling Dan Pengurusan Kredit
Agensi Kaunseling Dan Pengurusan Kredit (AKPK) is an agency set up by Bank Negara Malaysia to provide financial education, credit counseling and debt restructuring services to individuals. AKPK was established to proactively ensure that the household sector continues to be resilient by providing an avenue for individual borrowers and potential borrowers to seek advice and assistance in managing their finances and debts and while promoting a sound and robust banking system.
AKPK’s mission is to Make Prudent Financial Management a Way of Life for all Malaysians. Financial and credit education is the answer to many of the problems consumers face today. AKPK has made it its goal to provide a variety of educational services designed to help individuals to take control of their financial situation and gain a peace of mind that comes from the wise use of credit. All services offered by AKPK are free of charge.
About Datamation (M) Sdn Bhd
The Datamation Group was founded in 1983 and is one of the oldest IT company in Malaysia. Since its inception twenty-five years ago, Datamation has expanded its activities both in terms of products, services and regional presentation.
Datamation deliver best of breed business IT solutions that encompass Document Processing, Business Process Analysis (BPA) & Management (BPM), Document Management, Business Performance Management, Enterprise Communication Management, Purchase To Payment (P2P), Content Management, Pre-press and Publishing. For more information on Datamation, please visit www.datamationgroup.comAbout Computhink
Computhink provides best-in-class ECM / Document Management solutions for secure information sharing and compliance, targeting small and medium size organizations. Using state-of-the-art technology Computhink solutions operate on a wide range of platforms, including Windows, LINUX and Novell. The ViewWise Product line includes Email Archiving Solutions for Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise. Founded in 1994, Computhink has thousands of worldwide customers in government, financial services, education, healthcare, manufacturing and utility organizations.
