| IT &
SEWA Bank Current
Status – SEWA Bank Technology at a Glance
 SEWA Bank has 45 computers and on-line access in
its main office. They have an IT department that houses three people in total; one person
is a full time consultant. The IT department is mainly involved in trouble shooting, data
entry, maintaining the hardware, and tweaking software products. There are 70 staff
members in SEWA Bank and 60 people use computers. They are currently on a Novell platform
and are planning to transition to a more secure and larger-capacity server. The bank has
11 collection centers of which 2 or 3 have stand-alone computers.
Reporting:
The headquarters are completely computerized with software programs for financial
accounting and portfolio tracking purposes. They have implemented a software program
developed by TM Systems, who develop tailored software packages for cooperative banks in
Ahmedabad. Along with their software program, the Bank has a parallel system for
reporting. This system utilizes an excel spreadsheet and is used to cross-tally reporting
figures generated by the banking software.
Loan Evaluations:
SEWA Bank has developed a customized,rigorous client risk rating instrument for microloan
evaluations but has not computerized it. The instrument serves as a quantitative source of
additional information, used to make loan decisions. It is completed at the field level by
the handholder responsible for that area of Ahmedabad city.
Information
Gathering and Trend Analysis:
Daily recording of cash collection information is extremely important to SEWA Bank for its
operational efficiency. Without this the day book cannot balance and unless the books are
balanced daily, staff do not go home. This is critical for maintaining operational
discipline. Daily cash collection data is entered into databases by the back office bank
staff based in the head office, once the handholders pass the scrolls filled out by bank
saathis to them. There are approximately 8 to 10 women who spend approximately 10% of
their time doing data entry work. Many checks and balances have been created to monitor
the accuracy level in the system.
In addition, trend
analysis is also important to SEWA Bank – in order to design new products and
services and monitor existing ones. This data is collected in a variety of ways –
through focus group discussions, one to one intervies or surveys using structured
questionnaires.
Finally, a monthly MIS
system collates current operational data from the trial balance for use by the senior
staff. One staff member is responsible for preparing the monthly MIS statement. SEWA
Bankcollects adequate data for reporting and decision-making purposes. The area that needs
improving upon is systematic data analysis and follow up.
Future Strategic
Imperatives and Technological Advancement Plans
 SEWA Bank is a unique institution in that it is
primarily owned by, led by and established for self employed women in low-income
communities. SEWA’s client outreach program consists of three levels of bank staff
and covers 175,000 clients. Customer services representatives now offer financial
counseling to bank members. These strengths combined with systems and methodologies that
promote efficiency and outstanding services are key to the Bank’s success as a
financial institution. As SEWA Bank thinks about the future, its focus is on maintaining
the quality of its outreach program and its services and to remove its back-office
inefficiencies and create a strong enough foundation to manage significant scaling up.
SEWA Bank and its
clients’ attitude towards technology and innovation is one of aggressive
consideration and customization to fit the needs of the Bank and its clients. Methods or
tools with clear and significant value propositions will be embraced and learned quickly.
SEWA Bank exemplified this when it computerized its main office in the mid-1990s. Bank
staff quickly came up to speed and developed the skills required to make effective use of
this technology.
SEWA Bank’s
priorities with respect to development within the next few years include disseminating
useful information and knowledge to their clients quickly and accurately. Here, technology
can play a larger role.
In a discussion of
possible technological advances and the impact these innovations are likely to have on the
Bank’s clients and staff, SEWA Bank prioritizes strategic initiatives in the near
term (in the next 3 to 5 years):
Priority #1:
Placing computers in all of their extension centers and then networking them to the main
office. This is a priority for them as this facilitates data transfer and communication
with bank staff in the field. Furthermore, this is complementary to the Bank’s plans
to decentralize their loan applications to the extension centers and to reduce main office
services.
Priority#2:
Integrating all their databases to provide compiled, comprehensive information on each of
the Bank’s clients. This enables them to provide each of their clients with an
identification number. When a client walks into the Bank, and the identification number is
inputted into the computer, a comprehensive package of information is available to the
customer representative with data on all products and services that the client currently
uses and on their background. This enables a customer service representative to guide a
client through product decisions or assess loan offering possibilities more efficiently.
Priority #3:
Financial counseling for clients, specifically for long term planning purposes. SEWA Bank
has already begun to provide its clients with counseling for long term financial planning.
Specific examples of counseling include planning for old age, children’s weddings,
and children’s higher education. A software program that helps them identify the most
suitable package of savings and credit products that SEWA Bank should recommend to an
individual for her specific situation is desirable.
Priority #4:
Disseminating information through "information kiosks," which are similar to ATM
machines without collecting or dispensing cash. SEWA Bank is in dire need of an efficient
and effective way of providing information to its clients. The bank staff find themselves
flooded with questions about their products and services during customer service hours and
find it increasingly difficult to respond to all of their clients’ inquiries. Since
one of SEWA Bank’s key priorities is empowering women and information is a crucial
aspect of this empowerment, using technology to provide information is a strong action
item. SEWA is interested in implementing a technology solution that is best described as
an "information kiosk," a computer or ATM-like instrument that will provide
information through graphics and voice recordings to illiterate women about SEWA
Bank’s products and services. They only require two or three of these as their
clients are all in a concentrated area, namely Ahmedabad, thus making it easy for them to
access one of these "information kiosks."
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