Individual Loans
Kredits supports all types of individual lending methodologies, any type of loan schedule, and fixed and variable interest rate structures. Kredits also supports the ability to track co-signers (co-signers are tracked for informational purposes and to make sure they are not overcommitted). Kredits also supports individual loans to group member while they remain part of their lending group.
Solidarity Group
Kredits is utilized by many MFIs who operate using the solidarity group methodology. In this methodology, a group of individuals (Kredits allows for any size group) cross-collateralize each other
Village Banking
Kredits supports the village banking methodology where a large group of people agree to form a village bank to provide their members a variety of financial services. Village banks are democratic organizations that have a few leadership positions (e.g., president, treasurer, secretary). Members can save within the organization and the savings collected can then be loaned out to members.
Loan Types
Kredits provides a wide variety of loan configuration for all lending methodologies. Kredits supports all standard schedule types including flat rate, declining balances (with equal principal or equal total), balloon payments (with interest installments of all amounts due at the end), as well as customized schedules that meet an MFI's unique needs. Loans can have fixed or variable interest rates or be indexed to a reference variable rate.
Credit Scoring
The Kredits system enables MFIs to rate borrower risk by using a credit score calculation. The credit score is based on a number of questions asked of a potential client and the credit scoring statistics of the country in which the institution operates. This credit score can greatly assist the institution in measuring risk and tailoring appropriate financial services to the clients.
Attendance Tracking
Attendance at weekly meetings is often a requirement of Grameen lending methodologies. Kredits enables MFIs to record the attendance of all of its clients. (Note: In addition to Grameen lending, Kredits also supports attendance tracking for all other lending methodologies.)
Guarantor Tracking
Any individual guaranteeing a loan can be tracked by Kredits. Several guarantors can be associated with a single loan and guarantors may be associated with multiple loans.
Collateral Tracking
MFIs can configure numerous types of collateral, as well as the information required for each type. This information can be entered and the collateral assigned to a specific loan.
Credit Union
Kredits supports credit unions organizations. Credit unions are financial institutions that are owned an controlled by their members. Kredits tracks the shares that the members purchase in their credit union, as well as all financial activity of the members.
Medical
Will cover pre-specified medical costs.
Life / Funeral
Kredits supports life insurance policies to cover funeral expenses and other hardships resulting from the death of a client or family member. Kredits tracks both beneficiaries and family members covered. This data (including KYC data) can be easily reported to third-party insurance providers who underwrite the policies. Insurance premiums can be scheduled at regular intervals (e.g. weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc.), can be shown on monitoring reports, and can be easily batch processed. Alternatively, insurance premiums can be tied to a fee as part of a loan disbursement. Finally, Kredits can track payouts to clients or beneficiaries and report them by any client or account parameter (e.g. loan officer, region, branch, center, etc.).
Accident
Will provide a payout to the client or a designated beneficiary in the event of a serious accident.
Credit
Will cover the outstanding balance on a client's loan in the event of death or accident.
Beneficiary Tracking
Kredits enables a client to define the beneficiary of his/her insurance policy. Personal information is tracked within Kredits about the beneficiary as well as the client's status.
Voluntary
Voluntary savings accounts are independently granted from the client’s loan and do not depend on the client’s repayment of the loan. Kredits offers all types of savings methodologies, from regular checking accounts (with or without an overdraft facility) to term deposits and recurring savings account where an amount is due at a set frequency for any period of time.
Compulsory
Kredits supports several compulsory savings methodologies which require a client to open a savings account to obtain a loan. The savings amount can be calculated as a percentage of the loan, can be required upfront as a condition of disbursement, or contributed over the course of the loan during the loan repayment period. The amount of money accumulated in the savings account is linked to the full repayment of the loan, and Kredits will prevent withdrawals from the compulsory savings account if there is an outstanding loan balance.
Overdraft Facility
Kredits enables institutions to activate an overdraft facility for its clients. This feature is used to establish a maximum overdraft limit for each client as well as an applicable interest rate.
Tax Withholdings
Kredits calculates and records the tax withholdings needed on all interest postings made on client savings accounts. The separate tax withholding rate can be established for each individual savings product by the institution.
Basic Shares
In some lending methodologies, such as credit unions, the client will be required to purchase one or more shares of the credit union to join. Kredits tracks these basic shares for each client. Shares can be redeemed at the time when the client leaves the program.
Proportional Shares
Following a loan application, a credit union may require their member to purchase additional shares based on the loan amount requested. Kredits enables MFIs to track these proportional shares for each individual client.
Cash in Field
Transactions can be undertaken in the field via a loan officer or other representative. This information can be entered through the back office facility offered by Kredits.
Cash Window
All transactions can be made via a cash window wherein receipts are printed directly from Kredits. This is the front office facility offered by Kredits.
Third-party
Disbursements and payments can be made through third parties such as banks, a post office, or some other.
Inter-Account Transfers
Transfers can be made between accounts (e.g., savings-to-savings, savings-to-loan, loan-to-savings).
Checks
Kredits can handle checks written from clients.
Mobile Phone
Upcoming functionality will enable institutions to have staff in branch offices enter client, loan, and transaction information via mobile phones. This functionality will be available at the end of 2011.
User Interface
The Kredits user interface is one of the most user-friendly of the industry. The navigation is easy and intuitive; tasks can be easily accessed and completed. Reports are well designed, and can flexibly and easily be adapted to display MFI specified information.
Upcoming functionality will enable institutions to enter client, loan, and transaction information using mobile technology.
Integrated Accounting
Kredits is designed to support the financial accounting requirements of our MFI partners. Kredits will automatically generate the relevant financial accounting entries in accordance with the MFI's chart of accounts and ensure that the financial accounting (general ledger) data is easily transferred to the MFI's chosen financial accounting technology solution. Kredits is designed to ensure compliance with regional as well as international accounting standards and to support full audit integrity, especially when having to account for exceptional circumstances within the MFI's normal business operations. Kredits will facilitate the generation of automated journal entries customized to the institution's chart of accounts on a daily, weekly, monthly or other periodic basis as stipulated by the MFI.
Reporting System
Kredits' powerful reporting engine contains over 78 standard reports which can be filtered and grouped on more than 120 different client and account variables. Reports can display summary statistics or provide client detail by credit officer, branch, type of business activity, or loan amount. The system is designed for maximum flexibility so that if a donor or banker quickly requires a status report for just the loans that they specifically financed, it can be easily generated with just a few mouse clicks.
All standard Kredits reports can be created in any currency. If different accounts are indexed to different currencies, Kredits can automatically convert them to one common currency for consolidated reporting.
As part of the Kredits implementation process, our clients are trained on the Kredits report writing template that works with Microsoft Excel. This template will enable data to be easily exported to Excel for use in any type of custom report required.
Events Tracking
Kredits can track high-risk events such as payment problems, loan misuse, and group guarantee issues. These events can be recorded and entered into the Kredits system for each loan. Once entered, this information is available to the institution and can be used to assess the client.
Interest Rates
Kredits supports a wide array of savings plan interest calculations. These can be applied to all types of savings plans, including compulsory, voluntary, checking, term deposit and recurring accounts. For all savings accounts the interest can be calculated on the minimum, average or actual balances of the savings account. Further, Kredits offers different methodologies of calculation from actual days to 360E. Kredits also allows for the posting of interest on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual or maturity basis. In addition, Kredits allows for a minimum balance to be entered under which the interest will not be posted. Finally, it is also possible to set the interest rate as a fixed or a variable rate, which can fluctuate based on an adjustable reference rate.
Interest Rates
Kredits tracks loans with fixed and variable interest rates. Fixed interest rate loans will not see their interest rate change over the course of the loan, whereas variable interest rate loans are linked to a reference rate that can vary over time.
Product Features
At Kredits we continually seek to develop and make available new and innovative solutions to increase MFI profitability, reduce finance risk, and improve operational performance.
Loans
Savings
Insurance
Equity
Payments
Implementation and Customization
Years of field experience has taught us that a technology solution can only benefit an MFI when it is part of a broader business improvement process. In addition, our outstanding implementation record has demonstrated the value of ensuring that the technology is correctly analyzed at the outset of implementation and that the technology is seamlessly integrated with the MFI's business processes and critical work flows.
Savings Types
Kredits supports all types of savings methodologies including regular checking accounts (with or without an overdraft facility), term deposits, and recurring savings accounts where deposits are due at a set frequency. These savings types can be offered on either a voluntary or compulsory savings basis.
Grameen
Kredits fully supports Grameen lending and currently tracks almost half a million Grameen borrowers around the world. Grameen (and modified Grameen) is a type of lending methodology which comes from the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, where borrowers are organized in a center an often large number of people (often 60). The center is organized in small groups of individuals. A center is frequently composed of 12 groups of 5 members, but other combinations exist as well. The members are severally and jointly liable for all the other members in their group first, and then are severally and jointly liable for all the members of the center. Each group has a leader, and the center has a president, treasurer and a secretary. The loans are taken by the members in a very systematic fashion to mitigate risks for the institution. There is no collateral taken. All reimbursements are weekly.
Introduction
At Kredits, we continually seek to develop and make available new and innovative solutions to increase MFI profitability, reduce finance risk, and improve operational performance.
Throughout our history, we have led the industry in innovation and take pride that Kredits was one of the first microfinance technology solutions to support the Grameen model, one of the first to integrate a credit scoring module, and the first available in Chinese.