The Hong Kong Export Credit Insurance Corporation (ECIC) was created by statute in 1966 to encourage and support export trade through the provision of insurance protection for Hong Kong exporters against non-payment risks arising from commercial and political events. It provides credit insurance and export declaration services for companies in Hong Kong.
The Challenge
Traditionally, all the procedures for handling credit insurances and export declarations were done manually. Staff in the Corporation had to handle large amount of paper works everyday. As the transit trade industry flourished, the Corporation had to face the challenge to tight resource when there was a sudden surge in paper works. Moreover, as the number of paper documents increased, it became hard for employees to search information. The physical documents generated from the records were also burdens for company storage.
ECIC needed a solution that reduced the paper works within the Corporation, so as to simplify traditional workflows and making information search easy.
The Solution
After understanding the practice in the Corporation, AGS consultants found that an automatic solution would suit the client. The solution had to allow exporters to make export declarations and apply export credit insurances in a straight-through manner to reduce manual work. Our consultants proposed an e-commerce system that allowed exporters to make declarations and apply insurances online.
Having an e-commerce system could only automate the procedures of applying services from the exporters. To truly reduce manual operations and automate the works in the Corporation, AGS consultants re-engineered systems in different departments. The re-engineered systems were linked to the e-commerce system, such that any new coming applications would be processed automatically.
Systems from the following departments were re-structured:
- Account & Finance
- Administration
- Credit-underwriting
- Debt collecting
- Human resource
- Risk management
With our consultations and services, the working efficiency in the Corporation had been greatly increased as manual works were substituted by automatic processes. Moreover, office storage and time to search information were saved when all information was stored electronically in the database. Staff could now focus the resource on preaching the benefits of export credit insurance to the whole industry.
The Corporation was the pioneer among Government-owned organizations to provide e-commerce services. The system is now used by all Hong Kong exporters to make export declarations and apply export credit insurances on the Internet. The system has been in production since 2002, and being used by more than 10,000 users, including all banks in Hong Kong. Currently, the system is handling credit lines worth of HKD 100 billion.
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