If I remember right - the year was 1995. I was working as the Head of IT in a bank in the U.A.E.  Issuing Letters of Credit (LC) for importers was a major business for the bank.  Most of the exports were from India & Southeast Asia. This meant, these countries were up much earlier than the UAE and would close for business much before UAE time. Therefore, we had a time constraint. This was one of the many challenges we faced.

The next problem was that, business houses in the UAE would open around 10am or so and remain open till late at night.  However, banks were open for regular hours. Hence, there were delays in receiving the LC applications.

The third problem was that all applications were manually typed by the customers and signed. Apart from this, the customers were spending much time in filling the six page application forms.

Why not do all this online, you may ask?  In those days, when Internet banking had not caught on, customers were more comfortable only when they signed and stamped the application. It was because the import value could be in several thousands of dollars.  Errors in the application forms meant further delays. 

The fourth problem was that it was difficult to get qualified and experienced persons who knew how to process applications for Letters of Credit. Every single application had to be scrutinised manually, corrected if there were errors and processed. This meant the cost of each LC was high. This resulted in lesser number of Letters of Credit that our bank could issue. 

The bank needed to find a solution and fast. Serendipitously something extraordinary was also happening in parallel – seemingly unrelated at that time.

My close friend, who is a well respected businessman in the UAE, approached me one day and said he had in stock some new kind of bar code scanners which he is unable to sell. The bar code scanners were such that they can read alphanumeric contents of large size, unlike the regular scanners we see in retail stores.

In a flash, an idea struck!

We developed software that helped our customers to prepare the LC applications using a PC.  With one master stroke, all problems listed above were solved. Subsequently my friend, who did not know what to do with the scanners, now found a new market!

So how was it done?

The applications prepared using a PC not only made the task simpler, but were also error free. Apart from the standard text, the application form also contained bar codes of the same text.

When these applications were submitted to the bank, all one had to do, was to scan the bar codes. The text was directly captured into the banking system. Enormous time and cost were saved.

The qualified LC professionals now did not need to type the contents, but only verify them - as the job of scanning was assigned to junior staff.

Needless to say, this innovation was well received both by the bank management and the customers.  I am proud to say that the system was in use for several years until it was taken over by an online banking portal.

What one can gain from this story? 

No one had attempted to print 2-dimensional bar codes in LC applications before us. Banks are generally conservative in nature and it takes a long time to bring in innovation.  However, in our case the reverse was true. The bank management, upon seeing great potential, supported us. Of course there were several starting troubles, too numerous to mention here. It would have been very easy to give up. However, we did not do so and our perseverance paved the way to success.

In conclusion, I would like to say, a startup built on a great idea will have only ‘passion’ as the investment in the beginning. The ‘passion’ may face the brunt of criticisms and pressures from all corners including financial, demotivating talks, and wrong guidance and so on. However, if one is clear on his goals, has a vision in mind & a clear business model, success will not be far behind.