Mambu Blog.

Latest Discussions at Mambu.

Posted by: Eugene on 09/May/2013 @ 15:55
Filed under: General

Announcing Mambu 3.2 »

Mambu 3.2 provides brand new core functionality in accounting, loan schedule creation, pre-payment collections and dozens more improvements and minor bug fixes.

End of period accounting provides a simplified alternative to real-time straight through accounting in order to more consistently mirror branch and end of day activities. Additions of new combinations of schedule calculations, payment methods and interest application methods allow for a more diverse and customizable set of loan products. An all new powerful transaction lookup engine allows you to quickly find transactions of various sizes, corresponding to different bank accounts or identify any suspicious activity during auditing. New support for postdated payments allow simpler and more accurate captures of pre-payments for organizations who cannot collect deposits.

We’ve also introduced a notifications feed into the Mambu’s homescreen, allowing all users to be aware of events at Mambu, new releases and important announcements.

Posted by: Eugene on 02/May/2013 @ 15:30
Filed under: Industry

Bank On, Dave, Bank On »

What does it mean when an individual in a country is so frustrated with banking that he tries to start his own, taking on the challenges, personal risks, mind-numbing paperwork and legal battle of trying to offer a service that’s better, simpler and more personal than what the banks offer?

Dave and his, Bank of Dave – sorry, “Bank on Dave!” – signals that the banks have overshot their market. Like Christensen’s classic innovator’s dilemma the banks are adding “features” and services and innovating for the top of their market. And for arguable the first time in recent years they’ve left such a large gap, such an unmet need, in the bottom of the market and have so greatly missed what most people really need that David and initiatives like his open the door for a new type of bank to emerge. One that’s far cheaper, with far fewer features but delivers what customers really value: direct personal relationships.

Of course what David is doing is nothing new to anyone familiar with microfinance. It’s a story being told in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America over the last decade. Yet the fact that it’s now happening in the UK as well seems to indicate a bigger trend than just the microfinance movement. A trend in getting back to the grassroots approach of banking. A counter-movement to the events of 2008 and to the Too Big To Fail problem.

The story of David’s bank is highly recommended viewing of understanding what microfinance and banking is really all about: people.

Posted by: Eugene on 28/Apr/2013 @ 10:54
Filed under: Industry,Poverty

Example of Rapid Reduction in Microfinance Interest Rates »

Microfinance has long had an outcry due to “extraordinarily high” interest rates often found in emerging markets. Phrases like profiting from the poor and extortion get haphazardly thrown around by those who do not understand the economics and challenges of delivering financial services in these markets. Comparing interest rates in the US to Africa is like comparing the prices of oranges in Mexico to those found in Antarctica.

In an inspiring example of creating rapid progress in lowering interest rates, UNIT Trust of Tanzania (UTT) has managed to offer interest rates which are three times lower than the rest of the market. How did they do it? Primarily through the use of “advanced technology on acquiring and repaying loans — especially mobile money transfer platforms.” As a result, their interest rate is only 18 per cent compared to other microinstitutions that charge up to 48 per cent.

Providing microfinance is expensive. Technology makes it a lot cheaper. Organizations like UTT who can leverage technology intelligently can rapidly innovate in their market, lower the cost of banking services while growing their own margins and market penetration.

Posted by: Eugene on 25/Mar/2013 @ 19:15
Filed under: Industry

Rethinking Banking IT »

In a world where everybody is surrounded by screens, where new technology becomes dated in less than a year, where mobile and software is eating the world, surely the rich banks of the world are first to leverage their massive financial resources to bring amazing new innovations to their clients? Beautiful and seamless banking user experiences new ways to transact and personalized products are rapidly being offered by banks all over the world, right? Not quite.

Although banks spend $120B on IT every year, the vast majority of that is simply to keep the ship afloat. Only 25% is used for new projects. And with outdated technology platforms (good luck finding COBOL developers), decades of legacy code and waterfall development models how efficiently is this 25% really being used? How heavy is the stone that banks are carrying around which prevents them from innovating around the very core of their business?

banking-disruption

One can’t help but wonder how long can this last when ‘microfinance’ organizations are young, agile and personal. When online lenders replace traditional bank services, when trust in banks is plummeting and their service experiences are outdated it seems certainly that a few will innovate and rise above the masses, but the rest will be in for a surprise.

Posted by: Eugene on 14/Mar/2013 @ 08:15
Filed under: Poverty

The Lacklustre, Life-Changing Middle »

Microfinance like all industries loves its outliers. The amazing story of the entrepreneur who built a business by starting with a single chicken and a $50 loan and worked his way up while supporting his family and contributing to his community by paying employees. Or the drastic opposite of over-indebtedness and its questionable correlation to suicides. These stories are remarkable, so they are covered and are remarked upon. They are very worthwhile topics for discussion: they show the power and potential as well as the risks and pitfalls. But the reality, for the vast majority of people, is in the lacklustre but life-changing middle.

What could be more fundamental to poverty reduction than helping the poor make sure they have enough to eat and other basic necessities throughout the week, the month and the year?

Financial services, for most people, should help providing stability in an unpredictable world. Savings for future ambitions. Loans for opportunities. Insurances for crisis. Consumption smooth, should not be seen as “consolation prize in the quest to eliminate world poverty”. It should just really be seen as the foundation from which a thriving and growing economy can be built. As Chris Dunford wisely states in the article above, “the old narrative of the microentrepreneur who, by removing capital constraints, is enabled to grasp business opportunities and lift a whole family from poverty isn’t wrong; it is just one way people use financial services.”

Posted by: Eugene on 12/Mar/2013 @ 15:50
Filed under: Industry

Speed Wins »

In a recent roundup of predictions for banking technology in 2013 the big opportunity and challenge which emerged is speed. As customers are expecting to access their financial services through new channels and financial organizations are expected to start leveraging integrated systems and big data to gain deeper understanding of their customers need. Technology is moving at accelerating pace, customers are having less and less trust and lock-in with their current banks and online technology is raising serious questions as to “whether traditional banks can bring new technologies to market fast enough to retain and grow customers.”

Microfinance organization need to think about speed more than anyone. Their markets are being quickly settled with new nibble players who are innovating with branches on wheels, mobile channels, agent networks and whatever other service channels they can to reach their clients. These entrants may not look like the banks of old but may be a post office, a telecommunications company or an online startup but they are meeting the same client needs.

The technology capabilities now exist but banks must quickly implement them. If they don’t, new entrants, without the burden of legacy systems, may prove to be more nimble and offer more differentiated services to customers.

MFIs may have many financial disadvantages compared to western banks but at least they don’t have the burden of maintaining a massively expensive infrastructure with huge mound of COBOL spaghetti code which nobody knows. With subscription servicing and cloud computing eliminating the the majority of up-front costs, innovative financial service providers should be able to quickly pivot to new technology to improve internal operations and react faster to market needs.

They just need to have the foresight to make the jump before the transition before the market leaves them behind.

Posted by: Eugene on 18/Feb/2013 @ 22:47
Filed under: General

Impact of Financing »

As some of you may have seen, we’ve recently announced a round of financing. The two great new investors involved are Point Nine Capital and Runa. We were lucky enough to have some positive coverage online on sites like TechCrunch, Venture Village and The Next Web.

Financing announcements, like most press, are orchestrated events. You control to some degree what you want said about you, who should say it and the noise you make about all that is being said. There are two schools of thought on this. The obvious one is that it’s great for everyone to hear about this. It’s a major, rare event in the life of a company, it shows that it has a bright future ahead and attracts the eyes of both its own industry as well as the investment community. So shout it from all the rooftops, the majority theory goes. The minority approach takes the opposite perspective. Financing is great but it distracts the company from focusing on its client, it distracts the team from the vast efforts still ahead and it’s a checkbox not a fireworks show in the company history. Best to stay humble, stay quiet and get back to work.

They’re both right to some extent but both slightly miss the real impact of a financing round and what it enables. It’s the ability to build a better product faster for your clients. It’s the ability to add more amazing people to a growing team to better serve those clients. And it’s the freedom to be creative, experiment and innovate on a global stage. These are things which are certainly worth talking about and which do not distract but serve to motivate you on your mission.

When viewed from this light, no matter what some blogs say or don’t say, those who should be at the limelight of every financing round are not the company executives or the investors but the clients who’s problems are going to be solved faster and better than ever before. After all, that’s why the company came to exist in the first place.

Posted by: Eugene on 12/Feb/2013 @ 23:39
Filed under: New Release

Announcing Mambu 3.1 »

With our first new release of 2013, Mambu 3.1 provides powerful new loan security and tracking tools as well new customizations to make Mambu your own and understand microfinance data.

Securities and collateral tracking allowing organizations to reduce and manage their risk from uncertain loans. Taxes tracking simplifies the tedious process of having to track and account for various taxes associated with providing financial services. Custom field sets are a powerful new feature allowing organizations to effectively completely customize their data collection forms to suit their unique needs and processes while a whole new slew of list filters allow users to drill down and identify and analyze portfolio and client information like never before.

In addition to these major new features we’ve made dozens of minor improvements, fixed a lot of annoying bugs and opened up even more functionality with new APIs for the developers and technology partners.

We expect this release to be just the beginning of an exciting year ahead for the Mambu platform. As our development team has more than doubled in size from last year you’ll see more great new features and improvements in 2013. Our product goals remain the same as ever before: to make it easier for organizations to manage their portfolios, to understand their clients, to measure their social and financial impact and to grow and improve their businesses to better serve their markets.

Posted by: Eugene on 29/Dec/2012 @ 22:12
Filed under: Developers,New Release

Android App in the Works »

A little preview of our native Android App in the works for 2013.

Posted by: Eugene on 05/Nov/2012 @ 16:00
Filed under: New Release

Announcing Mambu 3.0 »

We’re thrilled to announce our Mambu 3.0 release bringing many great new features, a cleaner interface and an exciting preview.

Mambu 3.0 makes it easier than ever to work across accounts by introducing account transfers and linked accounts. With an entirely new lending methodology of fixed schedules we simplify and support the unique needs of microfinance organizations and their clients giving them greater flexibility on how they pay back their loans. By introducing attachments & activities at the account level, it’s now even easier to track and manage your loan documents as well as to see all non-financial account events. Multiple index interest rates enhances the power of working with index rates on accounts while new collection sheet views make it easier to collect repayments from the field.

Developers, integrators and partners should also be excited to see new APIs such as for storing full client and loan application details, backdating transactions and performing account transfers. With the addition of automatically triggered webhooks and opt-out notifications entirely new integration possibilities become available.

We’ve also improved the general look and feel and usability of Mambu by adding contextual help and page titles, simplified tabs and reduced clutter with collapsable form sections. We’re confident the many small improvements will make using Mambu more efficient, more enjoyable and will help onboard new users faster.

Last and most exciting of all, Mambu 3.0 now includes a preview of the Client Portal: giving financial institution’s end-clients the ability to manage their accounts online. This feature is currently in a private beta but stay tuned for a full announcement and tour.

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