Professional Documents
Culture Documents
At present, our loan product is still based on GB and RDI model with following designs:
■ Small scale: the ceiling of the first loan is l,000 yuan of RMB (about US$120);
■ The management fee (8-10%)is charged according to the market rate;
■ The loan shall be used for production purpose;
■ The first loan in a group is handed out in the order of 2-2-1;
■ The loan is paid back in installments of every week;
■ Require group fund and compulsory savings.
A computerized management information system (MIS) for microfinance has been developed by
CICETE based on CGAP’s MIS. The main characteristics of this MIS reside in its flexibility and its
unexpected transactional capabilities. The software has two main parts: the operational level CPO MIS
and the monitoring level SCO MIS. The only input made at the SCO level is the product description.
The SCO MIS has a set of financial index that can automatically analyze MF performance in each
CPO.
The operational CPO level integrates transactional features by handling day to day transactions in
its voucher while the product management component completes the data input needed to produce
automatically the 3 basic financial statements. Reporting is very flexible as suggest the choice of 41
indicators from which we can select as a menu. Other reports includes:
Delinquent loans by loan officer
PAR by loan officer, branch and product
Detailed aging of PAR
Portfolio concentration report
Detailed delinquent loan history
Loan write-off and recuperation report
Aging of loans and calculation of reserve
Daily payment report
Loan account activity
Active loan per loan officer
Staff incentive report
Dormant savings account report
Active savings account by branch and product
Savings report
Saving account activity
Group membership report
Actual to budget report
Capital adequacy report
Projected cash flow….
CPO MIS is now in Chinese since this level is where most of the entries are made but it will
soon be possible to switch from Chinese to English by a click of a button. The SCO MIS is now in both
Chinese and English.
The security was addressed by incorporating a user name and password approach. Both are
needed for every entry, this information is then added to each record of the database making it possible
to retrace unauthorized transactions
The software was developed with Delphi 3.0 Client / Server supporting Multiple Document
Interface. Excluding the database, the software uses 26 Megs of HDD and runs smoothly in a range of
32—64 Megs of RAM. Options for operating the system includes:
The implantation of this system is an occasion of establishing a culture of transparency that can
only serves replication of sustainable microfinance schemes. But it has not been effectively used by
CPOs because the lack of qualified staff at the local level and strong maintenance support from SCO.
V. FUTURE ARRANGEMENTS
Demonstration projects in microfinance supported by UNDP and CICETE from 1995 in
China showed that the poor are bankable. Most projects report good repayment rates and
demonstrated to have a positive impact on the living standards of poor households. The result
of these projects encouraged the Government to provide additional capital (poverty alleviation
loans) to target poor households. The People's Bank of China decided to allow these projects
to continue their operations despite the absence of a microfinance specific regulatory
framework, as long as donor financing was involved. The development of microfinance,
which targets the lower income groups in poor counties in China, is at a nascent stage. This
stage is characterized by experimentation with yet little concern for sustainability and "best
practices" in microfinance. The challenge is now to build on the initial experience gained
from the demonstration projects in order to establish unsubsidized and sustainable access to
financial services for poor households in poor counties of China. The 48 counties based
demonstration projects have had a positive impact on the living standards of a large number
of poor households living in poor counties in China. However, at present, it is perceived that
the none of the demonstration projects is fully sustainable and that they will not reach a
sufficient level of sustainability if they do not considerably increase their capacity to provide
microfinance in line with international best practices. The followings are the problems, which
need to be addressed with a view to, apply sustainable microfinance practices:
1) The 48 counties based projects are dispersed over China which makes hard to build
sufficient capacity of each project to become sustainable.
2) Sustainable microfinance schemes should focus on microfinance services and not to be
involved in the management of other multi-sectoral activities.
3) The management structure and capacity of most projects are too weak to become
sustainable
4) The projects operate in a legal vacuum, but are allowed by the Peoples Bank of China to
continue operations as part of foreign donor experiments.
In the new century, UNDP and CICETE will still focus on microfinance for poverty
alleviation but will adjust the strategy. The basic idea is to setup some pilot institute to
demonstrate the MF with fully financial self-sufficient and, at the same time, continue to
support the other RDAs on potential sustainability and new approaches for poverty
alleviation. For this purpose, UNDP has approved two new projects for poverty alleviation: 1)
Support Microfinance to Alleviate Poverty (SMAP) and 2) Comprehensive Approach for
Poverty Alleviation (CAPA).
Under the first project, four pilot institutions will be selected out of the 48 microfinance
schemes on the basis of their potential to become self sufficient and the commitment of their
local Government to fully support the pilot institution to build this capacity and to adopt
sound microfinance principles. The selected pilot institutions will receive intensive technical
assistance from international and national consultants specialized in microfinance to build
their capacity in areas like financial accounting, financial management, management
information systems and reporting, product development, business management and business
planning in order to be able to function as a self-managed organization.
The second project will have two components. One is to support the central government
on policy research, demonstrate village development planning and setup management
information system for poverty alleviation. The second is to provide technical assistance to
the other RDAs and implement village development planning is those areas. After 18 month,
some best practitioners supported by CAPA project could be supported by SMAP project for
sustainable development.