Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation

The challenge

SMBC ran loan approvals through manual handoffs spread across disconnected tools. Credit teams had no single view of where an application sat, who owned the next action, or whether the data in front of them was current. Approvals slowed, errors crept into memos and portfolio records, and stakeholders worked from figures that had already gone stale.

The approach

I designed a single platform that unified the workflows credit teams were already running across separate systems. That meant mapping the approval chain end to end, defining the roles and authority levels attached to each step, and building an interface that made the state of every deal visible at a glance.

Sync status became a first class part of the interface rather than a background process. Users can see when data last updated and resolve discrepancies directly, which removed the guesswork that had been driving rework.

The solution

• A dashboard with a categorized sidebar covering Deals, Approvals, and Portfolio Management Group, so navigation matched how teams actually think about their work.
• A loan approval workflow that tracks every approval, surfaces roles and responsibilities, and makes the next required action obvious.
• Pipeline management views showing application status, assigned roles, and authority levels together, with integrated tools to catch missing or outdated data before it moves downstream.
• Real time sync alerts that notify every stakeholder when data updates, plus clear indicators showing the last sync.
• An authentication flow with a clean login, password strength feedback, and guided recovery, paired with strengthened password policies.
• Custom illustrations for empty states that tell users what to do next instead of leaving them at a dead end.
• A responsive system that holds up on large trading floor monitors and on mobile, with WCAG 2.1 accessibility built in from the start.

The outcome

Digitizing the workflow reduced processing time and removed a category of errors that manual approval had made routine. Security improved through stronger password and recovery policies. The framework was built to extend, so SMBC can add workflows without rebuilding the foundation.