Having the students on-line rather than in line. The Icelandic Student Loan Fund (LÍN), a government agency, supports Icelandic students in their studies by granting loans with low interest rates. The service has around 40,000 clients, with one third of the students studying abroad. The Fund also has the role of calling in loans from some 34,000 debtors. Students applying for funding need to submit various items of information. Before this project was launched, application forms and other forms used to be sent manually to students to be completed and would then be returned to LÍN. Now this is done electronically via the Internet, using a highly integrated citizen portal. The clients of LIN are mostly young and computer literate and they all have access to computers and the net. Since many students are studying abroad, providing forms online is a very important addition to LIN's services for students. Because of the Four Freedoms decree, foreigners who have been living in Iceland for more than a year can also apply for a student loan. So, a Swede who has been living in Iceland but is now studying in the UK may be eligible for a loan and may therefore submit the application on-line. This is one of the reasons why an increasing number of clients of the service are applying from abroad and the system therefore meets a real need. In the past, handling a case used to take 3 months; now this is more like 3 minutes.

Main results, benefits and impacts

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Return on investment

Lessons learnt

In the past, handling a case used to take 3 months; now this is more like 3 minutes. The system therefore meets a real need.