Association reiterates commitment to deepen financial inclusion in rural areas
NAN-HE-11
Microfinance
By Lucy Nwachukwu
Abuja, July 24, 2017 (NAN) Mr Godbless Safugha, the Executive Secretary, Association of Non-Bank Micro Finance Institutions (ANMFIN), has reiterated the association’s commitment to deepen financial inclusion in rural areas.
Safugha told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday that the association, in collaboration with the Rural Finance Building Programme (RUFIN), was ensuring this through the ANMFIN Cloud project.
The ANMFIN Cloud is a Microfinance Management Application developed to provide support to NGO-MFIs, Financial Cooperatives.
It is developed to credit only Microfinance companies with its best-practice microfinance software, helping them to improve efficiency, reduce costs and expand outreach.
The ANMFIN Cloud helps MFIs to leverage the latest technologies sweeping across Nigeria, but at a fraction of the cost associated with traditional microfinance systems.
The system is cloud-based, removing hosting costs while maintaining the high security and flexibility required in microfinance software.
Safugha said that RUFIN in 2016 paid for the training, deployment and licensing cost of ANMFIN Cloud for 150 MFIs.
He said the intervention was to help MFIs that needed software to implement the Rural Business plan in their businesses but were unable to pay for the deployment and licensing cost of software.
He said “ as at today, 169 Non-Bank Microfinance Institutions are using the ANMFIN Cloud for their daily transaction.
“The intervention has assisted MFIs to deepen financial inclusion in rural areas.
“Every year, the training arm of ANMFIN trains hundreds of MFI in various subjects bordering around microfinance”.
According to him, the association is responsible for the promotion of capacity development of the microfinance institutions in Nigeria.
He said the institute provided training and technical assistance to staff and board members of microfinance institutions as well as stakeholders in the sub-sector.
He said the ANMFIN had about 671 MFI in various courses such as Access to Finance, Agricultural Value Chain Finance, Rural Business Plan, Corporate Excellence and Delinquency & Risk Management.
Safugha said the association also trained the members in Savings Mobilization, Entrepreneurial Skills and Financial Intelligence and Information Communication Technology courses.
According to him,“ our goal is to revolutionise the way financial services are delivered across Nigeria, and in doing so to improve the lives of the unbanked”.
“Before starting ANMFIN Cloud, the team visited several cloud based microfinance applications across the world, including the world’s first 100 per cent mobile microfinance institution in Kenya.
“As a result, we have firsthand knowledge of what it’s like to run a microfinance organisation and the challenges faced in finding the perfect microfinance system.
“We see technology as key to the future of microfinance and crucial to our goal of improving livelihoods through financial inclusion.
“The lessons we have learnt as a microfinance network, providing training and technical assistance to over 4,000 microfinance institutions, have now been distilled into our ANMFIN Cloud System.(NAN)
LCN/IA
(Edited by Idris Abdulrahman)