SunGard Helping Grameen Scale Up Microfinance Platform
The Grameen Foundation, a Washington, D.C. nonprofit organization founded by the creator of Grameen Bank, Muhammad Yunus, has announced that it is working with SunGard to scale up the Mifos platform it provides to microfinance institutions.
The Grameen organization is working with several technology companies to enable its technology to accommodate the growth of microfinance (small loans made to low-income people). In late July, the organization announced an agreement with ThoughtWorks to rewrite the open source platform to handle more activity.
SunGard is helping Grameen with procedures and quality assurance as it expands its platform, specifically helping with data migration, reporting and implementation. Technology and consulting professionals from SunGard's global services business will provide strategic support to Grameen Foundation's Mifos team and its customers. SunGard has already helped benchmark and scale the capacity of Mifos. Over the past three years SunGard has built test environments, procedures and quality assurance to benchmark Mifos' scalability and extensibility as a portfolio management platform. This work has been used by Mifos customers such as Grameen Koota, a leading MFI in Karnataka, India. SunGard's global services staff have joined forces with Mifos field professionals to bring enhanced services in data migration, reporting and implementation management to other MFIs such as Adhikar in Orissa, India and Kabalikat para sa Maunlad na Buhay in Valenzuela City, Philippines.
"We set out to use open technology as an enabler to satisfy the enormous demand for microfinance," said George Conard, executive director of Grameen Foundation's Technology for Microfinance Initiative. "SunGard's support, know-how and leadership can help Mifos more effectively scale and penetrate the marketplace."
Launched in 2006, Mifos is a software platform for microfinance institutions that offers both an online hosted service, Mifos Cloud, and a downloadable open source edition for use on premise. Mifos is currently used by MFIs in the Americas, Asia, Middle East-North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa, in countries such as India, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Philippines and Tunisia, serving more than 800,000 clients. Mifos is spearheaded by the Technology for Microfinance Initiative based at Grameen Foundation's Technology Center in Seattle, with support in Africa, Asia, Middle East and the Americas.
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