Modernizing legacy student loan assessment systems with a migration to the Cloud

About the client

This is a not-for-profit government-owned organization administers loans and grants to students in colleges and universities in the UK. It is an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Department for Education.

At a glance

The client engaged Atos in a project to modernize its legacy loan assessment system to the cloud using a phased approach for minimal disruption. The goal was to enhance operational efficiency and provide a seamless user experience, aligning with the customer’s vision of becoming an ‘enabler of opportunity’ for students in search of financial aid.

Outcomes

CSAT Score of 9
Cost savings of £10M
Helped support government policy changes and roll-overs of loan products, loan sale projects and 3X yearly university payments

Challenges

Loans laced with legacy difficulties

The client’s IT infrastructure was laced with legacy inefficiencies. Some of the key challenges were outdated frameworks, limited documentation, and tightly coupled dependencies, including six shared applications via a common database and 22 integration points.

Another obstacle was the technical hurdles — monolithic applications, retrofitting compatibility, and managing ongoing modifications during transition phases. Incompatibility between legacy systems and cloud-hosted modules during migration may have added to the integration complexities.

Solution

Scalable, sustainable technology stacks

To minimize the risk and ensure a controlled transformation, Atos strategically began with the migration of a single product and domicile, targeting a smaller user group and fewer customer applications. This approach reduced potential customer impact and reputational risk while serving as a blueprint for scaling the modernization across other student finance undergraduate products. The successful end-to-end migration of application processing for this initial scope validated the phased approach and laid the foundation for a broader rollout.

Key transformation efforts included a complete overhaul of the technology stack. The UI layer was modernized using ReactJS, Redux, CSS, and HTML5. A major architectural improvement was the consolidation of multiple academic-year codebases into a single, scalable codebase powered by a redesigned assessment rule engine.