This is where your officers work credit files in LitFin Intelligence, real ones and practice ones: the queue, the written analysis, the document checks and the risks. The decision on each file is your officer's.
While you practise, the home screen shows how many practice files you have been given, the average number of days to a decision, how many you approved, which are past the time your institution allows, and the total value of the practice loans. The figures change as soon as a file moves, so you always know how much work is waiting.
Practice files reach you according to the loan product, the loan size, your branch and how much you already have open. At the top of the queue are files close to their deadline, applications that were flagged and files waiting for your reply, so you learn to run a real queue without losing track of any file.
Mwikila, our AI Senior Agriculture & Finance Consultant, is open on every page of the officer portal and knows which file you are in. Ask him to summarise the application, to explain why something was flagged, to draft a message to a practice applicant, or to find the regulation that applies. His answers are about the file in front of you.
You sign in with the account your institution gives you. What you can open depends on your role: a junior officer, a senior reviewer, a branch manager and a compliance officer each see only the files and data meant for their level.
Pin the files you open most, save the filters you use, and choose how you are told about changes: by email, in the app or by SMS. The portal remembers how you left it, so next time you start where you stopped.
See your files as a board, with a column for each stage (new, in review, waiting for information, approved, declined), or as a plain list. On the board you drag a practice file from one stage to the next; in the list you can move several at once. It is the same flow you will use on real files.
Before you open a file, Mwikila has already read it once. Its card shows the main financial ratios and one sentence on what the loan depends on. Applications where documents disagree, or where something looks out of place, are marked so you see them first.
Filter files by loan product, amount, date received, type of borrower (a person, a small business or a company), branch or officer, or by several of these together. Sort them by deadline, loan amount or date received. Give a filter you use often a name and it is there next time.
Each practice file shows how long you have left, measured against the turnaround time your institution has set. A file close to its deadline turns amber; one that has passed it turns red and goes to your supervisor automatically. How you keep to these times shows in your own figures, so you get used to working to time.
A branch manager can move practice files from one officer to another, approve several low-risk applications together after they have been screened, or send a difficult file up to a senior reviewer. Every move is recorded, and when an officer is away their files pass to someone else automatically, so no file is left without an owner.
A practice file opens with a tab for each part of the review: Desktop review (the summary and the written analysis), Documents (everything uploaded), Financials (statements and ratios), Collateral (its value and how much of the loan it covers), Risk (where documents disagree, and the risks), Audit (everything done on the file) and Decision (your recommendation and who approves it).
The Desktop review tab holds a full credit analysis written by Mwikila: the business and its history, its sector, the people running it, how its finances have moved, what the loan is for and whether the business can pay it back. You can accept, change or replace any part of it, and your version is kept next to his, so a second reader sees both.
The analysis is set out under Character, Capacity, Capital, Collateral and Conditions, each with its evidence: CRB history and references under Character, cash flow and DSCR under Capacity, the owner's contribution and net worth under Capital, how much of the loan the collateral covers and how easily it could be sold under Collateral, and the market and the rules under Conditions. Each line links to the document it was read from.
The Financials tab works out and charts every ratio the file has the figures for: current ratio, quick ratio, debt to equity, DSCR, interest cover, gross and net margins, ROA, ROE and how working capital has moved. Where we hold a benchmark for the borrower's sector, it is shown with its source and the date it was published. Where we do not, the tab says so and shows none.
In the Decision tab you record your recommendation (approve, decline, refer up, or ask for more information), and it cannot be saved without your reasons. You practise the whole approval chain: the junior officer recommends, the senior officer approves and the branch manager signs off. Each step is signed digitally and dated, the same record a real decision needs.
Practice documents reach you already checked: the national ID (NIDA), TIN, business registration (BRELA), financial and bank statements, tax returns, title deeds, insurance, guarantor documents, the CRB consent, permits, leases, invoices and the rest. Format, whether they can be read, and expiry dates are checked before the file gets to you, so you spend your time on what the documents say.
Each document is read, scanned pages included, and the details that matter are taken out: names, dates, amounts, registration numbers. They are compared with what the application says, and any mismatch is marked: a name on the TIN that differs from the application, say, or financial statement figures that do not agree with the totals in the bank statement.
Open every document in the portal itself, with nothing to download. Zoom in on small print, turn a scan the right way up, and put two documents side by side to check the figures in the financial statements against the bank statements, or the ID photo on one document against another.
Mark a practice document as verified, flagged or rejected with one click. Put a note on the exact spot it concerns: circle a figure that looks wrong, or mark where a stamp is missing. When you reject a document, a request for a replacement is drafted for you, so you practise telling the borrower exactly what is needed.
Everything done to a document is recorded: who opened it, when and for how long, which notes were added and what status it was given. So when someone later asks how a file was handled, you can show them from the record.
The income stated on the application is compared with the deposits in the bank statements, the tax returns, the revenue in the financial statements and any payslips. If a borrower states one figure for the year's sales and the bank statements show far less coming in, it is marked, with both figures, the gap between them and the documents each came from.
Names, dates of birth, addresses and registration numbers are compared across every document in the file. Small differences are caught (a name spelt two ways, two digits swapped, photos that do not match), and each one is shown with what differs, in which two documents, and what would settle it.
Mwikila looks for dates that cannot all be true: a business that says it has traded for ten years but was registered two years ago, financial statements dated after the application was sent, or a sale recorded before the harvest it came from. Histories like these are often made up, and each one is marked with the documents that show it.
The figures are checked against each other across documents: a profit in the income statement that does not reconcile with the balance sheet, a cash flow statement that the bank records contradict, or costs far outside what is usual in the sector. Round numbers are picked out too, where every figure ends in a row of zeros, because they can mean a figure was estimated rather than counted.
What the borrower has told you is compared with the CRB report. If the borrower says there are no other loans and the report shows loans still running, or the balances they gave differ from the CRB's, the conflict is marked with both figures and where each came from, and a next step is suggested, from asking for an explanation to recommending a decline.
On practice files you write to a simulated borrower through messages inside the portal. Every message is encrypted, dated and kept with the file. Your supervisor can read the whole exchange, so you learn to keep correspondence that someone else can follow.
When you need another document or an explanation, you practise writing the request from a ready template: a missing document, a question about the figures, a new valuation of the collateral, details of a guarantor, and others. The simulated borrower receives a clear list of what to send, by when, and how to reply.
Mwikila can draft the messages you send most often: that an application has arrived, that more information is needed, where an application stands, the terms of a conditional approval, or a decline with advice on what to do next. He writes them in English and in Swahili, and you read and edit each one, so you learn to write clearly before you do it with a real client. You can choose how formal they are.
Each time you change a file's status, a simulated notice goes to the borrower by the channel they chose: in the app, by email or by SMS. You also see a tracker showing exactly where the practice application has reached.
Every action in the officer portal is recorded: opening a file, viewing a document and for how long, changing a status, adding a note, sending a message, recording a decision, even a search. Nobody can edit or delete these entries, and each carries the time, the officer's identity, the IP address and the session it came from.
The review runs the checks your institution sets: how much can be lent to one borrower, KYC documents that have expired, disclosures that are missing. The limits are your institution's, not ours, and no regulator has given LitFin Intelligence any approval.
Practise the reports your institution files: loan classification, the non-performing loan ratio, lending by sector, and notices of large loans. They are built from your practice files, on your institution's own templates, so you know the format before it counts.
Planned, and not live yet. It would watch for patterns worth questioning: approvals coming unusually fast, Mwikila's recommendations being overruled again and again, the same condition waived repeatedly, or many files processed after hours. Each alert would go to your compliance officer with the file's history, so that fraud from outside, and weak controls inside, can be caught early.
One click downloads the whole record of a file, in date order: the application, every document, the written analysis, the reasons for the decision, who approved it, the conditions and whether they were met, the check on the disbursement, and the full audit trail.
Send us a credit file you have already decided, and compare our appraisal with the decision you made. We will tell you what we need before you send anything.