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Learn moreThis project focused on developing an intuitive support application for planning real estate optimization projects.
Of course, all of this was done with an eye toward the application’s security, scalability, and extensibility.
In this case study, you’ll learn more about this project.
S-Kreditpartner GmbH (SKP) is the specialized partner for the installment loan business within the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe. S-Kreditpartner was founded in 2011 and is a subsidiary of Deutsche Leasing, Berliner Sparkasse/BSK 1818, and SKP Verbundgesellschaft.
More than 90 percent of the savings banks, together with their customers, rely on its services. With more than 750 employees and a loan portfolio exceeding 11 billion euros (as of June 2024), SKP is clearly on the path to success.
SKP sees itself as a driver of innovation, an enabler, and a pioneer of digital transformation through well-designed processes.
S-Kreditpartner GmbH by the Numbers
SKP was referred to us by our long-standing partner, “essential – business excellence GmbH.” SKP was looking for an agency to help develop an application for planning real estate modernization projects. The goal was to leverage new technologies while ensuring efficient implementation.
In March 2024, the first phase of the project was launched with a prototype. The prototype served as a starting point to support the Sparkassen’s advisory process, facilitate the planning of real estate optimization projects, and enable customized financing.
Thanks to our active agile development culture and SKP as a committed client that fully embraced this approach, we were able to further develop the prototype into a fully functional application over two additional iterations (October 2024 and April 2025). The “My Optimization Planner – Sparkassen” (MOP-S).
Since October 2024, a knowledge portal dedicated to heat pumps has also been integrated into “MOP-S,” and additional offerings are expected to follow.
In Phases 2 and 3, feedback from participating savings banks and their advisors was incorporated, and the integration of various data sources was advanced.
Two key data sources that were integrated to optimize the advisory process are:
Throughout the entire development process, we had to take into account the application’s security, scalability, and extensibility. As a bank, SKP is subject to strict regulation by supervisory authorities and legal requirements—such as DORA—when developing applications.
Through this collaboration, we were able to familiarize ourselves with SKP’s processes, better understand the regulatory requirements, and implement them to ensure the application’s security.
To ensure scalability, the application was developed to be cloud-ready. SKP opted for Google Cloud for this purpose.
The application’s extensibility was a core element of the project, as additional features were to be implemented incrementally to optimally tailor the project to the needs of customers and savings banks. Thanks to our preferred continuous relaunch approach and our agile way of working, this is easy to implement.
It was very helpful to us that SKP focused on development with new technologies right from the start. For us, this meant we could opt for modern JavaScript and CSS frameworks.
For an integrated admin tool, we chose a modern PHP framework. This tool provides analytics data and customizes parts of the application using various parameters that can be configured in real time.
We use Keycloak as our identity provider, which manages both authentication and authorization, thereby controlling access to the MOP-S, the heat pump knowledge portal, and the admin tool. Everything is in one Backend, making it easy for administrators to manage.
Integrating a bank’s requirements into our existing development processes was certainly a challenge at first—especially when it came to the documentation requirements for work and concepts. We’re inspired by SKP’s willingness to break new ground and embrace new technologies. Combined with agile development and genuine participation in the processes, this joint project is also a lot of fun for our developers.
This project has once again demonstrated just how essential the guidance and dedicated commitment of a product owner from the service provider are. To optimally address both the technical and organizational challenges, a separate budget was allocated for this purpose.
This allowed us to bring on board an experienced Product Owner who served as the central point of contact and clearly communicated the product’s vision. Especially in pure application development, this targeted investment enables us to significantly improve both speed and quality. The Product Owner not only ensured that tasks were prioritized and requirements clarified, but also made sure that the team remained focused on the most important goals at all times.
We worked very closely with SKP from the very beginning and were able to collaborate successfully using an agile approach. Thanks to SKP’s thorough preparation and analysis of customer and savings bank needs, development was highly targeted. Even the MOP-S prototype was enough to win over SKP.
The savings banks and customers also achieved many successes in the subsequent Phases 2 and 3 by using MOP-S in their lending processes.
We are very much looking forward to the further development of the MOP-S and the other project components in close collaboration with SKP.
