Founded in 1992, China Everbright Bank has more than 350 outlets in 36 cities and 23 provinces. It has assets of RMB 328.3 billion yuan ($41 billion) and outstanding loans totalling RMB 191.3 billion yuan ($24 billion). Everbright Bank provides commercial loans in a wide range of industries throughout China; however, as the Chinese economy has grown, the bank's diverse client base created a level of process complexity that became difficult to manage effectively. Loan approvals were particularly complex, requiring the evaluation of multiple factors, such as customer preferences, credit history and capacity, as well as regulations, business operations and industrial risk. Meanwhile, credit risk managers had to collect information from different sources before manually assessing each risk profile to determine eligibility and pricing. This process created a backlog in loan applications, which could take weeks or even months to approve.

Using ILOG JRules, the new system automates the pre-qualification and underwriting and frees staff from performing this task manually -- all while lowering the risk to the bank through better risk management. Also, since ILOG JRules ensures loan servicing with timely tracking of repayments, the new system reduces losses from delinquent or delayed payments - contributing to the overall financial health of the bank.

ILOG partnered with Bearing Point to deploy the application for the bank. In addition to providing BRMS technology, ILOG provided technical expertise in product, design and architecture through its professional services organisation, while Bearing Point, one of the world's largest business consulting and systems integration firms, performed the systems integration work.