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eSolve Completes R17 T24 upgrade at Slovenia

eSolve with its regional partner Etios has successfully upgraded Leading Banking Software from R12 to R17 for a bank in Slovenia. The upgrade will enhance the technology platform in line with the banks focus to improve customer experience and provide a wider range of product offerings.

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The MFI organizations’ use different IT systems for tracking client information, managing applications and reporting.

THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN MICROFINANCE & HINDERANCE FACED BY MFIs

Introduction:

“A good information system is a necessary tool for managing a MFI successfully.”

The MFI organizations’ use different IT systems for tracking client information, managing applications and reporting.

The majority of MFI would like to use more technology for the following reasons:

  1. To improve reporting on financial, operational and social/economic performance.
  2. To reduce costs and improve efficiency.
  3. To add and attract new clients and retain existing ones
  4. Finally to expand geographical outreach.

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Project Management in Simple Words-Vol-1

What is a project?

Project is a collaborative enterprise, involving research or design that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim.

In simple words

Project produces unique results: meaning the product or service at the end of the project should be some way different than the existing (can be an invention or an innovation.)

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NPA-Non Performing Assets

Non-Performing Assets:

Financial institutions classify an asset as a Non-Performing Asset depending on the age of the default under that Asset (generally loan given by the institution). Usually, when an Interest or Principle instalment under a loan remains overdue for a specified period of time the loan is classified as NPA.

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Fund Transfer Terminology in India

Balancing commercial and social vision:

The social value of microfinance has long been taken for granted; the sector’s number one priority has essentially been to scale up. In the mid-1990’s, when attention was driven by growth and sustainability, focus was on the number of clients, profitability, subsidy, dependency, reduction of delinquency, and operational and financial sustainability.  Through the mid-2000s, efforts to assess the contribution of microfinance to development were often denigrated by influential players in the sector, who did not want social concerns to “hijack” MFIs’ focus on financial performance. However, the aforementioned developments in recent years have led microfinance actors to make the social dimension of their activities more visible. The recognition of a double bottom line that marries financial and social performance is poised to become mainstream. This shift has revealed that good social outcomes are indeed compatible with financial performance as they improve client retention, repayment and staff productivity. Some even propose to relax regulatory constraints for institution that have proven their social utility  or credit rating based incentives for institutions that contribute substantially to social objectives.

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Micro Finance-Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths and Weaknesses of micro finance 

Strengths:

The biggest strength is bringing financial services to the poorest of the poor people and making it financially sustainable by the economies of scalability. In India the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) finances more than 500 banks that lend funds to Self-help groups (SHG). SHGs comprise twenty or fewer members, of whom the majority are women from the poorest castes and tribes. Nearly 1.4 million SHGs comprising approximately 20 million women now borrow from banks,  which makes the Indian SHG-Bank Linkage model the largest microfinance program in the world. Similar programs also help in the development of an economy by giving people the chance to establish a sustainable means of income. Eventual increases in disposable income will lead to economic development and growth.

Weaknesses:

There´s not much research done on the actual effectiveness of microfinance as a tool for economic growth. Some argue that there´s too much focus on microfinance which will motivate less spending in other helping assistances like public health, welfare, and education.

Some doubts about microfinance really have that impact on poverty as the MFI’s would submit.  Some microfinance institutions charge excessive interests thereby exploiting the under privileged.

Studies of microcredit programs have found that women often act as collection agents for their husbands and sons, such that the men spend the money themselves while women are saddled with the credit risk. Some borrowers have become dependent on loans for household expenditures rather than capital investments.

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Micro Finance

Micro Finance-Prime Motto

Outreach and sustainability are two critical objectives for microfinance institutions (MFIs).

Outreach is also an indicator of the institution’s social mission—to scale up and provide services to as many people as possible.

Sustainability, in contrast, requires operating at a level of profitability that allows sustained service delivery without dependence on subsidized inputs

This represents the institution’s commercial strategy. For MFIs, managing growth is the process of balancing the objectives of outreach (social mission) and sustainability (commercial strategy).

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Automated Testing

In software testing, test automation is the use of special software (separate from the software being tested) to control the execution of tests and the comparison of actual outcomes with predicted outcomes.

Some software testing tasks, such as extensive low-level interface regression testing, can be laborious and time consuming to do manually. In addition, a manual approach might not always be effective in finding certain classes of defects. Test automation offers a possibility to perform these types of testing effectively.

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