Microline Finance and Banking System For Microfinance Institutions

Background:

Microline finance banking is a solution for microfinancing and credit banking powered by Microsoft .Net platform. It aims to improve their management information systems (MIS). The development of Microline finance banking has offered microfinance institutions around the world an opportunity to lower the risk and the cost of lending to poor entrepreneurs and households in the under developed rural areas, thus assisting these operations to improve profitability.

Most of the world's economically backward do not have access to formal banking services. The reason - reaching customers in under developed rural areas with conventional banking techniques has been too risky and too costly. But the past two decades have seen the development of new microfinance technologies that have lowered the cost of lending to poor entrepreneurs and farmers.

In the past microfinance institutions around the world were able to reach only a few hundred clients. Recently a growing number have been able to extend their services to thousands of customers. Many of these institutions use manual systems and spreadsheets (such as Excel or Lotus) to track client accounts and create portfolio reports. But these manual and spreadsheet systems collapse when an institution's structure becomes more complex. It is also difficult to consolidate manual or spreadsheet information from multiple branches. Most managers of growing institutions gradually lose their ability to maintain personal contact with what is happening at the field level and realize that they cannot adequately manage their portfolio and financial operations without better information.

Hence the need to improve the management information systems (MIS) in microfinance institutions.

The solution:

The solution takes care of all transactions and customer records maintained by ADO.Net connected Microsoft SQL 2000 database server. A number of clients can be connected to the server simultaneously over the Windows 2000 based network with adequate security provided by multilevel login system, which in turn maximizes the system productivity at lower risk. User-friendly VB.Net based front-end tool is designed for employees / administrators. This solution uses Crystal reports, which can generate various periodical & customized reports.