Business case and initial solution
Before opening Pega Blueprint™, review the problem you are trying to solve. You will hear from Maya Chen, Head of Loan Operations at U+Bank.
Setting the scene: U+Bank
Below is a summary of her challenge. You will use this context in your work as a Solution Designer.
The business problem
U+Bank originates unsecured personal loans entirely through manual processes. Applications arrive through branches, phone, and email, with no unified digital intake, and are tracked in a single shared spreadsheet with no validation or backup. Credit bureau lookups and debt-to-income calculations are completed manually, underwriting decisions vary from one individual to another, and adverse-action notices are drafted by hand. As a result, a loan decision can take days, and sometimes weeks.
Meanwhile, the market has moved: from our research, an estimated 97% of borrowers research online, and 37% are willing to complete a loan entirely digitally, while manual origination can consume up to 40 hours of staff effort per application. The difference between customer expectations and U+Bank's current process creates revenue and compliance risks.
| Who feels it | What is happening | Business impact |
|---|---|---|
| Applicants | Apply by email, branch, or phone with no confirmation or status updates; asked for the same documents repeatedly; wait days to weeks for a decision. |
|
| Loan Officers | Re-key every application into a shared spreadsheet; chase documents across inboxes; recalculate rates by hand. |
|
| Credit Analysts and Underwriters | Manual bureau lookups and affordability sums; no standard scorecard; borderline cases decided on judgment. |
|
| Compliance | Adverse-action notices drafted by hand and often late; Know Your Customer (KYC) evidence scattered; no reliable audit trail. |
|
| Head of Lending | No pipeline visibility, approval rates, or time-to-decision data; exceptions handled on an ad hoc basis. No opportunity to run campaigns to attract new business. |
|
The as-is process
The diagram below maps U+Bank's current manual origination process across the five phases of the journey and the roles involved. Review it carefully. The diagram also highlights critical risks in red and known issues U+Bank has already identified.
The as-is process reveals the following risks, issues and gaps:
- Critical risks: The entire pipeline is tracked in one shared spreadsheet with no backup, creating a single point of failure. Adverse-action notices are sent late, creating a compliance breach. KYC evidence is scattered and inconsistent.
- Known issues: Debt-to-income is calculated by hand with no standard threshold. Documents are spread across inboxes. There is no standard underwriting scorecard, so comparable applicants can receive different answers.
- Missing steps: There is no pipeline visibility or reporting, and no reliable audit trail of what was decided, by whom, and why.
Target outcomes
The Maya's ask translates into a set of outcomes for the new Pega application:
- A 24/7 self-service digital application that reduces dependence on staff availability.
- Same-day decisions for straight-through cases that previously took days or weeks to process.
- A target of 70–80% straight-through processing on low-risk, complete applications.
- More consistent, explainable, rule-based decisions, with decisions documented.
- One auditable pipeline, eliminating the shared-spreadsheet single point of failure.
- Compliance for KYC and anti-money laundering (AML) requirements, affordability assessments, and adverse-action notices.
- A reusable foundation that supports the future addition of other loan products
Note: This is exactly the transformation Pega is built for in lending. Proven client outcomes include faster, more efficient processing of consumer loans with 65% getting an instant response and an over 80% decrease in processing time end-to-end (Swedbank); credit approval reduced from weeks to 24 hours with roughly €80M in annual savings (Rabobank); and same-day commercial funding with a streamlined client experience (ING). These are the kind of results a well-designed Blueprint sets up.
Preview of the target solution
This is a high-level preview of the application you will design. Use it to orient yourself before the labs; the detailed configuration is defined step-by-step in the tutorials that follow.
Case Types
Blueprint will generate multiple distinct Case Types for the complete personal loan process. The number and design will depend on your inputs and description in the first tutorial. Because this is about Personal Loan Origination, we expect you to see a list similar to the one below. The rest of the tutorial experience will focus on the Loan Application Case Type. The others are out of scope, and you are welcome to continue designing them independently.
| Case Type | What it manages |
|---|---|
| Loan Application | The end-to-end application from submission through data entry and document collection. |
| Document Verification | Verification of submitted documents against regulatory and internal guidelines. |
| Credit Scoring | Credit-bureau retrieval, risk assessment, and debt-to-income calculation to determine eligibility and terms. |
| Loan Approval | Underwriter review, conditional approvals, and the final decision, including adverse-action on decline. |
| Loan Disbursement | Funding and disbursement of approved loans, including account setup. |
Loan Application Lifecycle
The Loan Application Case Type has four Primary Stages, with one Alternate Stage for rejected applications. In the second lab, you will import this case lifecycle from a BPMN file so that every learner starts from a similar baseline for the remaining labs.
| Stage | Type | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Submission | Primary | Collect applicant information, validate the data, and acknowledge receipt. |
| Quality Check | Primary | Collect and verify identity and employment documents. |
| Risk Review | Primary | Retrieve the credit score, analyze risk and affordability, and review loan terms. |
| Fulfillment | Primary | Sign documents, disburse funds, and close the Case. |
| Rejection | Alternate | Handle a declined application, including the adverse-action notice. |
Data for the Loan Application
The application captures the information needed to make a lending decision:
- Applicant income and employment status (Employed, Unemployed, Retired)
- Loan amount, loan term (12, 24, 36, 48, or 60 months), and loan purpose (Debt, Medical, Other)
- Credit score and debt-to-income ratio, retrieved and calculated during Risk Review
- Proof of identity and proof of employment documents
Note: Customer profiles are mastered in U+Bank's existing core banking system; the loan application itself is new and owned by this application. The full Data Model is defined in the Case Data Model lab.
This Topic is available in the following Module:
If you are having problems with your training, please review the Pega Academy Support FAQs.
Want to help us improve this content?