Archive for: MIS
by Lauren Braniff: Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Thank you for joining us these past couple of days to share your thoughts on improving the use of technology at MFIs. We’ve seen traffic on the site soar so I know there are a lot of people out there struggling with the same issues and I hope you learned something or will at least walk away with some food for thought.
A lot of people mentioned that technology investments don’t receive enough attention by MFI management. Perhaps part of the reason is that the term “technology” is so all encompassing that it becomes overwhelming to even think about. But by deconstructing the challenges into these four themes, I think we’ve started to make progress on what we as an industry can do to help MFIs move past the current status quo.
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Monica Brand has spent her career in the financial services and social enterprise sectors, expanding and enhancing the value offered to the majority. Ms. Brand currently manages ACCION’s Frontier Investments, whose mandate is to invest in early stage companies with disruptive business models that catalyze breakthrough innovation in financial inclusion.
OK. Let’s imagine you are the executive director, or perhaps the chief technology officer, of a strong growing MFI. Suppose you know you need to invest in some software, to replace those spreadsheets you are using to track your loan portfolio. You look around for options. There are some pretty slick core banking systems, but they’re pretty much overkill for what you need if you’re not actually a regulated banking institution.
Those systems are very expensive and are probably sold by a company on the other side of the world that offers limited local support. You could look for a local software firm and ask them to build a custom solution for you. But the company you select might not have any experience in microfinance. And they probably can’t give you a reliable estimate of what it will cost you. And they may not be around later when you need to update the application they build for you. Finally, you could hire your own team and do the whole project in house. But what happens when the project is complete or a few years down the road when you need to build in new functionality or scale up beyond the current capacity?
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Scott Gaul is the Product Development Manager at MIX. He joined MIX in early 2006, working as analyst for Eastern Europe and Central Asia and East Asia and the Pacific. Prior to joining MIX, Scott worked on interest rate risk management and asset/liability management issues for banks and other financial institutions, and he also has experience at a leading microfinance institution in Kyrgyzstan.
Andrew (Drew) Tulchin is Managing Partner of the Social Enterprise Associates, a managing consulting firm specializing in the ‘triple bottom line’ for development issues, particularly microfinance. Drew has consulted in more than 30 countries, including three visits to Afghanistan. He leads the MFI Reporting Standards Initiative, an industry wide effort, facilitated by the SEEP Network.
Sometimes important aspects of the world around us are so obvious they go unnoticed. We buy a light bulb and know it will fit the light socket even though the bulb and socket are made by different companies that know nothing of one another. We send an email and the message passes through several software applications all by different authors, but nonetheless arrives intact.
What makes all this possible? In short, it is standards: formal rules and guidelines to which manufacturers subscribe that make their respective products more useful to a larger number of people. Standards play a large role in many industries including both technology and finance. In both fields, standards provide foundations making it possible for computer applications, as well as people, to exchange information efficiently and reliably.
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Jorge Perez-Luna joined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in January 2008 as the IT Business Partner for Global Development. Jorge has more than 15 years of international experience leading and managing complex Information Technology organizations in Latin America, USA, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia, including key positions within AT&T and Nextel.
If you were to take a tour of the established commercial banks almost anywhere, you would probably find that their business processes are remarkably similar. Wherever banking and financial services are well developed, the drive for efficiency and the need for transparency have moved business processes in a similar direction. Moreover, processes will be well documented and transparent.
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Carol Caruso is Managing Director of Triple Jump Advisory Services, a Dutch Foundation offering Grants and Capacity Building Services for MFIs. Carol has 17 years of experience working both in commercial and non-profit sectors throughout the US, Europe, Middle East, China and Africa for Fortune 100 companies and MFIs managing business and technology services. Her background includes strategic planning and advising, product development, eMedia project management, MIS & mobile technology program development.
Imagine for a moment that you are the executive director of a growing MFI considering whether to adopt some type of client and portfolio management system or mobile banking solution. What is the potential value in such a system? What are the relative benefits of different solutions? What are their real costs? How will they serve your business goals? What are your technology needs likely to be in the future? How do current solutions and infrastructure support those needs? And most importantly, how can you optimize your business processes to take maximum advantage of any technology solution?
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Why do MFIs struggle with technology and what can MFIs, donors, investors, TA providers, software vendors and others do to improve the situation?
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably asked yourself the same question, or heard it discussed around the office and at conferences. It’s the same question microfinance practitioners have been posing for over decade now. Since we’re all discussing the same question, and seeking solutions, CGAP and the Grameen Foundation are co-hosting this virtual conference so we as an industry can share thoughts and generate ideas for how to address the technology challenge at MFIs.
This discussion builds on one which began at a workshop in October, co-organized by CGAP and the Grameen Foundation with support from the Mastercard Foundation. During the workshop we identified four themes which present an obstacle to the effective use of technology at MFIs: skills, business processes, business models, and standards. Are improvements in these four areas the key to helping MFIs capitalize on technology to improve the efficiency, transparency, and outreach of their operations?
Over the next two days, we’ll be joined by several industry experts who will each introduce a theme and moderate a discussion. The objective is to discuss how the theme relates to the broader question at hand, and what each stakeholder group can do to support MFIs.
The conference will take place right here on the blog, no registration is required. Just post your comments using the “Leave a reply” option at the bottom of the thread.
Day One: December 8, 2009
Day Two: December 9, 2009
by George Conard: Monday, December 7, 2009
George Conard is the Executive Director, Technology for Microfinance, at Grameen Foundation. The Foundation’s Mifos Initiative delivers open source technology and business services for microfinance institutions worldwide.
Back-office management information systems (MIS) are a critical enabler of the growth and effectiveness of microfinance. To realize the full value of the technology, however, MFIs must look beyond the software and consider human and business process factors. Further, the value of the technology investment will be multiplied dramatically as the core MIS is integrated into other internal and external technology systems.
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by Jim Rosenberg: Thursday, December 3, 2009
CGAP and the Grameen Foundation, with support from the Mastercard Foundation, recently co-organized a workshop to discuss what needs to happen to make appropriate back-office systems (including people and processes as well as technology) more broadly adopted by MFIs.
Join us on December 8-9, 2009 for a virtual conference hosted by the CGAP Technology Blog to discuss four themes which emerged from the recent workshop:
What role do each of these themes play in preventing MFIs from optimizing their use of technology? What can the industry do to address these challenges?
The conversation gets going at 9 am EST (14:00 GMT) on Dec. 8. No advance registration required.
-Jim Rosenberg
by Lauren Braniff: Wednesday, November 25, 2009
A sound financial sector rests on timely and accurate information: microfinance institutions (MFIs) require information to monitor their business and make decisions, and supervisors rely on information to verify the soundness and stability of institutions and the market as a whole. At the foundation of this process lies the MFI’s “back office”, which can be broadly defined as the people, processes, and in some cases but not always, technology which help institutions manage their business.
A good back office system lies at the core of every successful financial institution. In many cases, however, MFIs struggle to generate accurate information and reports for themselves, funders, and supervisors. This limits the soundness and efficiency of MFIs, reduces the government’s ability to supervise the market, and in turn, negatively impacts the expansion of access to financial services.
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by Jim Rosenberg: Friday, November 6, 2009
Recently we caught up with Brian Cox, the CEO of MFX Solutions. MFX Solutions was launched in July 2009 as the first dedicated currency hedging facility created by and for microfinance. The company was set up by a group of microfinance industry players (lenders, investors, networks, and foundations), who came together to address two critical needs in microfinance: helping MFIs understand and measure currency risk, and making available modern hedging solutions to enable more local currency lending.
Tell us a bit about your group and whom you’re trying to serve.
MFX provides currency swaps and forwards to MIVs and MFIs. We currently are working with 14 MIVs in Europe and the US who are investors in MFX. We also offer free on line tools for MFI managers who want to better analyze their currency and interest rate risk.
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