A Project Report Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Award the Degree of Master of Science in Embedded and Mobile Systems of the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology
As technology has evolved and has embraced nearly all sectors of human daily life, bank
processes are not left behind. Moreover, mobile technology penetration and internet access in
Africa have increased a lot. In Burundi, internet users have increased by 452 thousand
(+39%) between 2020 and 2021. Therefore, the introduction of a mobile system for the
banking process would be in line with the region’s digital trends. As for the case of the
Burundian bank, the Banque de Gestion et de Financement (BGF) some processes are still
done manually and the physical presence of the client is mandatory. This is the case in the
loan application process. Existing studies have presented digital solutions for loan
management but the studies are not tailored to Burundian banks' processes and regulations
and there are security issues that are not addressed. To tackle the above challenges and
enhance the loan management process, this study proposes a mobile-based system that
manages the loan requests: the customer applies for a loan and is informed of the approval or
rejection of the application online without reaching the banks’ offices. The system provides
feedback to the customer within fewer processes and in secure and reliable conditions. The
proposed system does not incorporate the entire loan management process. The flow of
information within BGF departments during the loan application analysis is not included in
the proposed system. The system development process was based on the agile model
methodology and the prototype was completed with the use of tools such as android studio,
html5, css3, angular JavaScript, bootstrap for the front end, and PHP and MySQL for the
back end. The system verification and validation included 10 participants from BGF (staff)
and 15 BGF customers. The 25 participants evaluated the proposed system and gave positive
feedback regarding the performance, ease of use, and usefulness.