Loan Forum

Inspiration

We recognized a lack of streamlined online loaning services on the current mobile marketplace. In response, we created Loan Forum to fill this niche. By connecting users through the Internet, Loan Forum provides opportunities to request, receive, and offer loans otherwise unobtainable.

What it does

Reiterating, Loan Forum is a public area to request, receive, and offer loans. Requesting users can create a request post which will appear in the general thread. Other users can view the post and decide whether or not to offer a loan based on the requesting user's credibility (how trustworthy they are). Upon receiving an offer, the requesting user can view the offering user's credibility to determine whether or not to accept the offer. After a transaction is made, the offering user's credibility increases and the requesting user's credibility changes base on on-time, early, late, or missed payments.

How we built it

We used Android Studio for our IDE and we shared our code with the Code With Me plugin. We used XML for the frontend development and Java for the backend development. For our database, we used the Firebase Firestore Database and Realtime Database.

Challenges we ran into

Our main challenge was using the Code With Me plugin. Because we were using the community license, we could only work on the project in 30 minute intervals before needing to restart the session. In addition, we could only emulate and debug our app on the host machine. We addressed these issues by working on separate components on our local machine and using the Code With Me plugin to merge our components onto the host machine. We admit, this process proved tedious, but with proper communication, it worked well.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are extremely proud of the project results given the short period. Specifically, the GUI is clean and we made sure to offer a pleasant user experience. We are also proud of our use of Firebase and how smoothly it went despite this being our first time using a database.

What we learned

The project required us to be well versed in Android Studio, and we learned a lot about its many libraries. We also learned how to navigate the IDE itself such as how to create emulators and define run configurations. In addition, we learned how to integrate the Firebase database into an Android app.

What's next for Loan Forum

We recognize the vast potential of Loan Forum, and we have prepared many ambitious future features. Our next step is to develop cloud messaging and figure out transaction logistics. We also plan on re-balancing the credibility system. For example, certain credibility ranges determine the maximum amount a user can request. In addition, we plan on adding a gratuity to users who exceed a certain amount of credibility. Finally, we are considering adding a feature to view any user's transactions to further increase trustworthiness, but we need to account for ethics.