OREANDA-NEWS. In the framework of a cooperative initiative, KfW has joined forces with top financial institutions of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, the cooperatives central banks DZ BANK and WGZ BANK, as well as Deutsche Bank and Postbank in order to develop and build up a new online promotional platform - On-lending Online 2.0 (BDO 2.0). Through the project new tools paired with efficient, automated processes and technical enhancements will improve the means for obtaining a promotional loan - for both customers as well as their regular banks - and thereby make it easier and faster. As before, the client advisers of the banks and savings banks remain the direct contacts for requests concerning KfW promotional loans. The banks and savings banks will also remain contracting parties of the customers in future and as risk bearers will make the lending decisions. The currently existing means of access to promotional loans through regular banks are maintained.

In view of the launch of the extensive work on the project, Dr Axel Nawrath, Member of the Executive Board of KfW Bankengruppe responsible for domestic promotional business, said: "Together with our partners we are making promotional business fit for the future. With the new web-based tools KfW will provide its customers and partner banks a significantly improved service. The key advantages of the new sales platform will be considerably faster and easier application for and processing of promotional loans."

The project measures focus on the application process and the handling of KfW and ERP promotional loans; the implementation of these measures will proceed in several steps. In a first step, the customers will be able to make online requests for advice directly through the KfW website (www.kfw.de) for both private as well as commercial promotional products. These are addressed to the customer's regular bank, which can offer specific advice.

In the next project step, the aim is to enable KfW to provide immediate binding confirmations of eligibility via the promotional platform firstly for the Energy-Efficient Refurbishment and Construction and the KfW Home Ownership programmes, which are in particularly high demand. The goal is that in the framework of the loan decision process, client advisors of a bank or savings bank will be able to determine whether a specific project is eligible or not directly after the electronic transfer of the project data to KfW. This will give customers a high degree of planning certainty for their projects at an early stage. In a further step, the client adviser as before submits the promotional loan application to the KfW electronically in order to receive the loan commitment from KfW. The pilot partners plan to gradually enable a seamless and even faster online application process in the coming years, adding additional KfW promotional products later.

The project will place the promotional business on an even more modern basis. The IT concept and implementation are part of the KfW modernisation process. The project enables the communication capabilities to be expanded to the benefit of customers and sales partners.