The client increased the scope of operations drastically, while working with Aspekt Product Suite.
Summary
Our Client works in the MFI industry acting as NGO that offers micro loans and financial support for the most vulnerable social layers and SME businesses, focusing on female population and members of socially excluded and marginalized groups. This Client has received many work acknowledgements and accomplishments in the field, some of which are listed in addition:
- Pro-Poor Innovation Award, by CGAP (The Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest).
- Award for innovative projects by the Microfinance Centre, as a result of access to the innovative use of group lending methodology for socially excluded groups in society.
- Finalist of Microfinance Good Practices Europe Award in organization of Fondazione Giordano Dell’Amore and European Microfinance Network, for the successful operations of the Roma population.
- Winner of Microfinance Good Practices Europe Award, sponsored by Giordano Dell’Amore Foundation in cooperation with European Microfinance Network, as recognition of the contribution of the Client in applying best practices in the field of micro crediting on European level and the introduction of innovative and useful components for economic and social development of the customer.
Challenge
At the very start, the Client implemented and used software for loan tracking, which proved for them to have lot of functional limitations in the performance of their day-to-day operations and as well as reporting limitations. Their business processes suffered malfunctions and were unmanageable. They came up with temporary solution – an internal Excel tool had to be developed to overcome the software limitations. On the other hand, they were using additional software for accounting purposes to comply with local legislations. Aspekt was challenged with redefining entire software workflow so that the new solution encompasses real flow of activities as in practice.
Some of the crucial problems to overcome with the new solution were: multi-entry data on several locations, mitigation of possibilities for human errors, keeping hard copies of various forms and documents, systems reconciliation and others. In the Aspekt Microfinance Software, the CLIENT recognized the opportunity to improve internal consistency of processes and integrate front office activities with the accounting, all in one place.
Solution
Aspekt used the extensive knowledge in microfinance business models and software development competence to align business operations with solution technology and integrate all parallel applications into one system. Analyzing the problems and difficulties the Client had, Aspekt offered the Aspekt Product Suite, which is sufficiently flexible and dynamic to respond to all of the Client’s demands.
The difference between the old and the new implemented software was obvious and our Client received many benefits, some of which are:
- The whole manual process of application filling and physical archiving is replaced with complete Application Processing System for submitted loan applications and fully integrated processes from product definition, application processing and analyses, scoring system to loan approval.
- The manual definition of loan products and their conditions is replaced with Dynamic Product Policy integrated in the system, so the Client can adapt loan product definition to market trends and borrower’s needs without any intervention from Aspekt.
- The Client received flexible financial reporting with reports completely adapted to the requirements and standards of the institutions reported at and with opportunities for further upgrade from user interface.
- The limited opportunities for adapting the plan for repayment of loans is replaced with a flexible system for repayment of loans offering range of options on the product policy definition to support changes of the repayment plan, according to individual borrower’s possibilities
- The Client received a system with flexible Application Processing and Approval System, where the hierarchy of approving applications and the conditions on which the approval is done is completely adaptable from user side, by which user control is enhanced.
Besides improving current operations, Aspekt Product Suite consisted value adding features and modules for Credit Scoring and Social Performance Management, which are crucial parts of the modern microfinance trends for flexible calculations of creditworthiness and measuring impact on society and mission fulfillment:
- Previously, the Client had no specific tool for automated and objective measurement of the creditworthiness of each borrower. The analysis consisted of a subjective assessment of the credit officer. The new solution has integrated and automated Credit Scoring features that allow creation of Scoring Cards with custom parameters, types of questions, ranked on the basis of the specific opinions, completely independent of Aspekt and directly from user side. The decisions are based on Credit Scoring measurable parameters, with possibility for statistical analyses of current and past figures.
- The Client didn’t have a tool for measuring social performance and level of achievement of organizational mission. Based on industry standards and the specific measurement indicators of the Client, Aspekt managed to implement a sophisticated system by which achievement of social objectives can be precisely measured and analyzed with specific parameters.
Results
The adaptation and implementation of Aspekt Product Suite for the Client represented a milestone in company’s institutional development. The sophisticated and advanced functionalities of the solution effectively influenced:
- Lowering down-time for performing activities and speeding up the process of data collection and entry
- Transparency of the results presented to investors, about operational performance and how the level of poverty changes through loan cycles
- 100% automation of manual operations and increasing employee’s efficiency, data quality and eliminating possibilities for human errors
- 360° view through the solution
- Successful migration of complex financial data
- Fixing functionality gaps from past systems and improvements with sophisticated functionalities, advanced functions and complex calculations, which the previous systems didn’t contain
- High independent rate of possibilities for adjustments due to dynamic and flexible nature of the solution
- Reductions in administrative work per branches by 70%, allowing personnel spend more time on field performing clients monitoring
- Significantly speeding up time for reporting and increasing quality of decision-making processes is way beyond management expectations.
