FAO-GTZ Microbanking System (MBwin)
The FAO-GTZ MicroBanking System is the product of collaboration between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (http://www.fao.org/) and the former Deutsche Gesellschaftfür Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH, now the Deutsche GesellschaftfürInternationaleZusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH (http://www.giz.de).

It is the banking system with real-time front office functionality, back office batch-posting functionally, a fully integrated, General Ledger (GL) system and other functions needed to run an office of a financial institution that accepts deposits and markets loans.

The system provides a classic menu structure as well as a set of speed buttons for the most common functions.The built-in reports are based on the requirements of difference financial organization, central bank, and other external

organizations.

It is also possible to integrate user-written reports to meet the specific requirements on individual organization.
MBwin has many functions such as:

    • Base Module

–   General Ledger
–   Contact Information File
–   Configurator
–   Take-on, translation, migration and branch replication utilities

    • Application modules are

–   Saving Account
–   Current Account
–   Time Deposited
–   Share Account
–   Loan Account
–   Group Features
–   Multi currencies
–   Multi-branch (On-line branch)
–   ATM Module

    • Contact Information File

    –   Contact ID Number (CID) can be either system generated or manually assigned.
    –   Centralized CIF with protection against the creation of duplicate records.
    –   Customer orientated with instant access to all the customer’s accounts and related contacts on screen.
    –   The system imposes no limit on the number of savings, current, time deposit, share accounts or loan accounts per customer.
    –   Facility to set relationship between contacts through user-defined relationships such as spouse, corporate officer, shareholder, family relationships, or other personal relation.
    –   CIF records are accessible by (i) CID (ii) National ID number, (iii) Name or part of the name (iv) Any of the customer’s accounts.
    –   Control of age-specific savings products through the customer’s date of birth, such as for Senior Citizen and Youth Accounts.
    –   Maintains historic loan information for each client, which is available for future loan appraisal.
    –   Comprehensive contact information can be entered in a multi-tab page interface (e.g. for commercial banks) or abbreviated information can be entered quickly through the use of CIF template (e.g. for MFIs).
    –   Automatic opening of specified savings or share account when a new CIF record is created.
    –   Accepts personal as well as institutional contact information
    –   Allows up to a maximum of four (4) configurable CIF name fields.
    –   Allows up to a maximum of nine (9) user-defined CIF classification codes.
    –   Handles multiple addresses (home, business, mailing, temporary, others).
    –   Client can choose language preference (in CML configuration).

    • General Ledger Features

  • –    User defined account format and header account format. GL accounts can have numeric or alpha-numeric account codes of a maximum of nine characters (or 13 characters if separators for numeric format are included).
    –   Easy account access through direct account code entry for experienced users or selection from pop-up menu for new users.
    –   Fully integrated and automated update of GL accounts with client transaction posting during end-of-day processing.
    –   Automatic reclassification of non-performing loans by their respective non-performing GL account.
    –   Automatic provisioning for non-performing loans as part of the end-of-month process.
    –   Automatic accrual of loan interest income (if income is accounted for on accrual basis) and deposit interest expenses (always accrued) and withholding tax liabilities.
    –   Standard reports include daily trial balance, daily listing of GL transactions and daily listing of GL transactions by GL account.
    –   The GL system can be run as a stand-alone program, which could be used in a head office accounting operation.
    –   Access to specific routines controlled by user defined teller roles.
    –   User-configured Balance Sheet, Profit and Loss, Weekly Balance Sheet, Six-column Trial Balance, and essential CGAP specified financial ratios can be generated.

    • Saving Account Features

  • –   Automatic generation of journals for (i) Monthly or Quarterly interest transfer from Time Deposit to Savings account (ii) Automatic recoveries from Savings Accounts to repay a loan.
    –   No limit on the number of accounts per customer.
    –   Automatic update of General Ledger at end-of-day.
    –   Automatic update of General Ledger for interest expense accruals at the end-of-month.
    –   Controls for (i) Verification of available balance upon withdrawal (ii) Transactions on dormant account (iii) Maintenance of user defined minimum balance (iv) User defined minimum balance for purpose of interest earning (v) Minimum opening balance for new accounts.
    –   Products user definable with or without passbook.
    –   Products user definable with or without withdrawals allowed.
    –   Facility for programmed savings with maturity date (contract and recurring savings)
    –   User selectable options for no-book deposits and no-book withdrawals.
    –   Automatic update of “un-posted” transactions in customer’s passbook such as debit/credit memos, no-book deposits and withdrawals, interest credits and withholding tax debits.
    –   Statement of Account printing upon customer request.
    –   User defined period for dormancy with automatic transfer to dormant status and to dormant GL account.
    –   Full support for passbook-less operations.
    –   Full support for ledger-less operations.
    –   Facility to place a Hold on (part of) the balance of an account for a specified period of time.
    –   Facility to define and control opening of “senior citizen” or “junior” accounts as a function of the age of the client.
    –   Dual account ownership allows full customer information of both customers for one account.
    –   Cheques can be issued and used, like current accounts.
    –   Different types of account hold/block/freeze which include balance hold, account hold, debit hold, credit hold, closing hold.
    –   Option to stop interest calculation for individual accounts.
    –   Unlimited number of cheque deposit types can be defined.
    –   Allows up to five (5) user-defined savings account classification codes.
    –   Interest Schemes:
  •              1. Choice of straight daily balance, minimum monthly balance or minimum quarterly balance.
  •              2. Optional graduated daily balance, selectable by product. The graduated rate depends on the
  •                   balance  of the account; for this purpose, a maximum of six balance brackets may be specified.
  •              3. User selectable monthly, quarterly, bi-annual, or annual automatic interest capitalization at the
  •                   product level. User can also select not to capitalize at all.
  • –   Pay or don’t pay interest on un-cleared cheques
  • –   Separate, user defined, (i) minimum balance maintenance, (ii) minimum balance for purpose of interest computation (iii) minimum opening deposit.
  • –   Choice of treatment of dormant accounts as to whether interest is payable or not.
  • –   Choice of current period interest payable/not payable upon account closure.
    • Share Account Features

    –   All features and functionalities of Savings Accounts are also available in the Share Accounts module. This application is normally used by cooperative institutions and sometimes referred to as “share capital” or “share contribution” accounts. They can either be classified under liabilities or as capital.
    –   Ability to produce share capital related reports such as “Patronage Refund” and “Dividend Distribution”.
    –   Ability to calculate the dividends for distribution at End Of Year and produce a batch for dividend posting.

    • Current Account Features

    –   Automatic generation of journals for (i) Monthly or quarterly interest transfer from Time Deposit to Current account (ii) Automatic recoveries from Current Accounts to repay a loan.
    –   No limit on the number of accounts per customer.
    –   Overdraft facility with unlimited number of overdraft slabs per account, whereby each slab representing an overdraft level, may carry its own (incremental) interest rate.
    –   Automatic update of General Ledger at end-of-day with current account transactions for that day.
    –   Automatic daily GL reclassification of clients accounts on the basis of credit or debit balance (from liability to asset or vice versa).
    –   Automatic update of General Ledger with debit interest capitalization (interest earned on overdraft accounts) at the end-of-month or quarter or year.
    –   Controls for (i) Verification of available balance upon withdrawal (ii) Transactions on dormant account (iii) Maintenance of user defined minimum balance for non-overdraft accounts (iv) Minimum opening deposits for new accounts (v) Cheque numbers actually issued and used (vi) stopped cheques.
    –   Statements of Account are printed daily or weekly or monthly or quarterly or upon customer request.
    –   User defined dormancy period.
    –   Full support for ledger-less operations.
    –   Dual account ownership allows full customer information of both customers for one account.
    –   Products user definable with or without passbook.
    –   Automatic transfer of GL account balances from debit to credit and vice versa depending on overdraft status.
    –   Different types of account hold/block/freeze which include balance hold, account hold, debit hold, credit hold, closing hold.
    –   Unlimited number of cheque deposit types can be defined.
    –   Allows up to five user-defined current account classification codes.
    –   Interest Schemes:

  •             1. Interest rates for overdraft accounts set per account and per overdraft level, effectively allowing
  •                 an  unlimited number of rates per account, depending on the debit balance.
  •             2. Choice of 360 or 365 days per year as interest divisor.
  •             3. User selectable monthly, quarterly, bi-annual or annual interest capitalization.
  •             4. Separate maintenance of both debit and credit interest balances.
  •             5. For credit interest, choice of straight daily balance, minimum monthly balance or minimum
  •                 quarterly balance.
  •             6. Optional graduated daily balance, selectable by product.
    • Time Deposit Features

    –   Automatic generation of journals for monthly or quarterly interest transfer to savings, current account, loan or GL pay-order account.
    –   Unlimited number of accounts per customer.
    –   Automatic update of General Ledger accounts at end-of-day and for interest accruals at end-of-month.
    –   Control of (i) Pre-termination (ii) Dormancy after maturity (iii) Validation of interest rates, periods and minimum and maximum amounts per bracket during opening.
    –   Support for pre-numbered certificates-of-deposit (CD).
    –   Optionally re-definable interest rates and contract duration at the time of opening of the account.
    –   User defined dormancy period, defined as number of month after maturity without rollover.
    –   Full support for ledger-less operations.
    –   Allows multiple ownership.
    –   Different types of account hold/block/freeze which include balance hold, account hold, debit hold, credit hold, closing hold.
    –   Allows up to five (5) user-defined time deposit account classification codes
    –   Can specify Rollover until certain expiry date. Account will be renewed until that date.
    –   Optionally allows additional deposits until the maturity date.
    –   Interest Schemes:

  •             1. Per product, interest rate may be a function of the term, the amount or a combination of both.
  •                 Maximum of eight term brackets and five amount brackets.
  •             2. Interest may be paid monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, annually, upon maturity or at any time. Monthly
  •                 and quarterly interest payments may be credited to a current account, loan or savings account or to  
  •                 a GL pay-order account.
  •             3. Upon maturity, the time deposit may be renewed (“rolled-over”) with or without interest.
  •             4. Interest after maturity (and when not renewed) payable at the savings rate or at any other, specified,
  •                 rate.
  •             5. Interest in case of pre-termination may be specified at (i) savings rate (ii) special rate (iii) time-based
  •                 rate, depending on the term that was actually completed.
  • –   Withholding tax option with up to nine tax rates as function of the category of client. If applicable, withholding tax is automatically debited. Separate rate schemes for savings and time deposits.
  • –   Products user definable with or without passbook.
    • Loan Account Features

    –   Automatic generation of journals for monthly or quarterly interest transfer from
    Time Deposit and for transfers from a savings or current account for the purpose of loan repayment.
    –   System imposes no limit on the number of accounts per customer.
    –   No limit on the number of loan products per bank.
    –   Automatic update of General Ledger at end-of-day.
    –   Option for accounting of income on either accrual basis or cash basis for performing loans.
    –   Separate option for accounting on cash basis for non performing loans and for penal interest.
    –   If accrual basis is selected for performing loans, automatic generation of interest accruals and update of the General Ledger income account at the end-of-month.
    –   Control of

    • 1. Product dependent loan limits
    • 2. Opening, approval and disbursement process with supervisor control over loan approval
    • 3. User Disbursement schedule (date and amount)
    • 4. Product dependent maximum and minimum loan periods.

    –   Products definable as single repayment or choice of installment schemes with frequencies of daily, weekly, fortnightly, semimonthly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, four-monthly, six-monthly, annually. In addition, a product may be defined to have an operator specified individual installment schedule which is flexible in terms of both installment dates and principal installment amounts.
    –   Repayment schedule with grace period, with or without interest during grace period.
    –   Repayment schedule with alternate installments with interest only and principal + interest.
    –   Rescheduling facility, with or without interest capitalization, with or without increase in loan amount, with or without change in installment schedule.
    –   Facility to debit miscellaneous charges as an accrual, separate from the principal balance.
    –   Option to deduct charges or fees from loan amount disbursed.
    –   Unlimited multiple disbursements from the same account.
    –   Disbursements may be made in cash, by cheque, or in kind. Repayments may be made in cash, by cheque or by voucher.
    –   Interest capitalization allowed only on an individual account basis for purpose of rescheduling.
    –   Repayments credited in the following order of priority:

    • 1. (i) Charges
    • 2. (ii) Penal interest
    • 3. (iii) Normal interest
    • 4. (iv) Principal.

    –   Optional “Specified Repayments” allow to override this order.
    –   Up to eight user-defined loan classification codes. Each code may be three characters with a break after the first character for purpose of sub-classification and sub-totaling.
    –   Up to four user-defined disbursement allocation codes per account, reflecting the use of cash or in-kind disbursements.
    –   Up to five classifications for non-performing accounts, based on user defined age of the oldest overdue installment.
    –   Automatic daily reclassification of non-performing loans over the user-defined GL classifications.
    –   Automatic provisioning for non-performing loans at end-of-month.
    –   Daily report, at beginning-of-day, on installments falling due that day and listing of all overdue loans.
    –   Facility to generate a mail-merge file with account and customer information for the purpose of sending billings or reminder letters to borrowers.
    –   Maintains historic information on closed loans and reports by client. Loan Interest and penal interest schemes.
    –   Interest and penal rate defined by product and specified at the time of account opening.
    –   Choice of 360 or 365 days per year as interest divisor.
    –   Per product, installments definable as (i) annuity installments whereby the sum of principal and interest is constant (ii) fixed principal installments with interest on declining daily balance (iii) fixed principal installments with flat interest on starting balance using either the daily interest or a periodic interest calculation.
    –   Option for deduction of interest in advance for loans with single repayment, with or without rebate in case of early repayment.
    –   An option for installment loans to apply repayments strictly following the installment schedule
    –   Option to add loan guarantors and co-owners
    –   Allows two separate account links for automatic recovery and surplus payments
    –   Support for customer designed loan agreement templates
    –   Late loan reminders printing and archiving
    –   Products user definable with or without passbook.
    –   Supports for collaterals and different types of collateral categories
    –   Reference (Prime) Rate feature that allows to link the interest rate changes in particular loan products to pre-defined Prime Rates change (Interbank borrowing rate, or Central Bank lending rate etc.)

    • Microfinance Groups Features

    –   Facility to maintain hierarchy of field officer/staff, up to three group levels, and group members.
    –   Automatic generation of disbursement and collection sheets.
    –   Batch transactions for group disbursements and collections are automatically created to allow exception posting, thereby reducing the processing time.
    –   Transaction backdating (within limits) and maintenance of cash balances for individual field staff provides excellent support for mobile banking and operations in remote areas.
    –   Loan installment schedules, and disbursements, can be synchronized with Center meeting dates
    –   Facility to include contract savings deposits in the collection sheet
    –   Various reports can be generated specific to groups implementation
    –   Loans of individual group members can be opened using loan opening template which significantly reduces data entry
    –   Bulk loan approval feature allows to approve many similar loans in batches in one screen.

    • Multicurrency Features

    –   Multicurrency module caters for customer and GL accounts in multiple different currencies.
    –   Operations in each currency are handled in a separate MBWin database. Customer information is shared between databases. This allows viewing of all a client’s accounts in the various currencies.
    –   Six different reports can be printed based on consolidated information on all currencies or using the currency of choice.
    –   Foreign currency revaluation gains or losses are calculated automatically. They can be posted manually at anytime or automatically at the end-of-month.
    –   Maintenance of non-monetary items and automatic conversion of these into the base currency at the end-of-day.

    • ATM Interface Features

    –   Account enquiries
    –   Withdrawals
    –   Deposits
    –   POS transactions
    –   Transaction reversal
    –   Mini-statements
    –   LORO transactions
    –   ATM transaction fee handling
    –   24 hour per day acceptance and handling of ATM transactions
    –   Support for single branch, separate branch databases in one server or multibranch database configuration
    –   Issuance of ATM cards and ATM card recordkeeping

    • Multibranch (On-line branch) Module

    –   All Branch data in one central database
    –   Possibility to post most transactions from any branch to any branch accounts
    –   Centralized processing of periodic procedures
    –   Centralized Backup and Log Backup Feature
    –   Consolidated or selected branch reports
    –   Merged or branch-specific products