Microfinance
Microfinance Reporting Standards

Microfinance Reporting Standards

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Gmail Peter Burgess [MFP] reporting standards 4 messages Murray Gardiner mgardiner@temenos.com [MicrofinancePractice] Thu, Aug 27, 2015 at 4:28 PM Reply-To: MicrofinancePractice@yahoogroups.com To: 'MicrofinancePractice@yahoogroups.com'

Dear Microfinance community,

I am curious. What does this community consider to be the most useful standard MIS reporting toolkit and the most widely used for portfolio reporting toolkit; risk; profitability; etc.

Sincerely,

Murray Gardiner

Anna Somos annasomos@yahoo.com [MicrofinancePractice] Thu, Aug 27, 2015 at 5:54 PM Reply-To: MicrofinancePractice@yahoogroups.com To: 'MicrofinancePractice@yahoogroups.com' Dear Murray, In my opinion the challenge here is not the 'usefulness' or the wide spread usage of certain MIS indicators. Rather the quality of data that serve as a base of generating these performance indicators.

Once you are certain that your MIS de facto accurate and shows what happens inside the organization (on the field, inside the finance department, branches and headoffice, loan officers and new clients etc) then you can use the reports that most of us consider indicative of your/MFIs operation's performance.

Any responsible and accountable MFI management sets these indicators up in a way that it clearly reflects and measures the performance of the strategy (mission) that they have set out for the organization to achieve.

I know, it may not directly respond to your question, but having seen numerous MIS systems and underlying data sets, I dare to be somewhat bold on this.

Best Regards,

Anna

Anna Somos Krishnan India: +919959444153 US: +1 6462624271

Malik Mirza malikmirza2000@yahoo.com [MicrofinancePractice] Fri, Aug 28, 2015 at 6:27 AM Reply-To: MicrofinancePractice@yahoogroups.com To: MicrofinancePractice@yahoogroups.com

Hello Murray

One of the documents which you may consider is from CGAP i.e. disclosure guidelines for MFIs.

It primarily relates to the disclosures required to be made by MFI in its financial statements to provide donors and users of the report details about the portfolio and related areas. Hope this is helpful. Links are given below:

http://www.cgap.org/publications/disclosure-guidelines-financial-reporting-mfis

http://www.cgap.org/sites/default/files/CGAP-Consensus-Guidelines-Disclosure-Guidelines-for-Financial-Reporting-by-Microfinance-Institutions-Jul-2003.pdf

best regards

Malik Mirza www.wisdomfrombooks.com

mcsoc04@yahoo.com [MicrofinancePractice] Mon, Aug 31, 2015 at 5:11 AM Reply-To: MicrofinancePractice@yahoogroups.com To: MicrofinancePractice@yahoogroups.com

Hi Murray,

If your question is more related to the setting of reporting standards, then I would refer you to two reporting standard guidelines from SEEP and Microrate. There was a previous Excel-based reporting tool developed by SEEP called FRAME which gained a little traction in the industry but ultimately was more useful as a training tool rather than actually standardizing global reporting. Finally there is the MIX who has their set of MFI reporting standards, including an XBRL template. See the links below for further reading:

SEEP Pocket Guide http://www.seepnetwork.org/pocket-guide-to-the-microfinance-financial-reporting-standards-measuring-financial-performance-of-microfinance-institutions-resources-180.php

Microrate Technical Guide http://www.microrate.com/technical-guide-performance-and-social-indicators-for-microfinance-institutions-2014

MIX Market XBRL http://www.themix.org/microfinance-reporting-standards/xbrl