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Table of Contents

Introduction

From July 2011 to September 2011, some ad-hoc work was done around re-implementing aspects of loan portfolio functionality that existed in mifos 2.2. The purpose of this was to see was it possible to develop substantial functionality on a volunteer time-basis.

As a result of this we (Keith Woodlock & John Woodlock) sought funding to take the existing code for the prototype and begin work on laying the foundation for the next evolution of the Mifos platform.

Other sources

General approach and philosophy

In general the plan is to focus on getting extra functionality and flexibility around the client, group and loan areas of mifos (which includes support for charges, fees and penalities).

To begin with, this is centered around clients and individual loans and then moving onto better support for groups and group loans.

This subset of functionality in portfolio management side is suitable for a number of MFIs that are presently using mifos.

After this, the focus will move towards savings functionality and better support for integrated savings and credit products and any other products used by MFIs such as insurance.

This subset of functionality in portfolio management will improve things for a number of MFIs using mifos and also attract other MFIs to use the software that previously did not.

Project Milestones

  1. July 2011 to September 2011: Prototype work on ad-hoc volunteer basis (1 developer)
    see Loan lifecycle and date flexibility: see Mifos 2.2 versus MifosX - Loan lifecycle and date flexibility
    see Loan schedule flexibility: see Mifos 2.2 versus MifosX - Loan repayment schedule flexibility
    see bulk upload/data migration for clients, loans (and loan repayments): see Mifos 2.2 versus MifosX - Bulk upload
  2. Jan 2012 to March 2012: Individual lending functionality (2 developers)
    Worked in close collaboration with CreoCore to provide functionality related to individual lending as was required by them whilst maintaining the vision of an open API led platform for microfinance.

Demo Details

You can signup an organisation: http://ec2-46-137-69-71.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com:8080/mifosng-server/signup

You can access the latest demo of this prototype at: http://ec2-46-137-69-71.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com:8080/mifosng-server/login

Multi-tenant

Data is created for two organisations to demonstrate multi-tenant capability of mifosX over mifos 2.2.

Organisation Name

Allowed currencies

Start Date

Offices

Demo MFI

CFA Franc BCEAO (XOF)

2010-08-09

1 (head office that is branch also)

By default Offices, Staff and Loan Products have being created for each organisation.

West African MFI (XOF) Organisation

One Office have been created for this organisation:

Office Name

Start Date

West African MFI (XOF) Head Office

2010-08-10

One Staff member of type Loan Offcier is created for each office:

  1. Kojo (head office)

Two Loan Products are created for the organisation:

Name

Currency

Digits after decimal

Description

Income Generating Loan (Flexible)

XOF

3

Flexible loan that allows user to edit principal and interest of installments at creation.

Income Generating Loan (Automatic)

XOF

3

Loan with automatic generation of loan schedule using Flat interest calculation method.

The following users are created:

...

Username

...

Password

...

Permissions

...

Note

...

dataentry1

...

password1

...

Full Loan Portfolio

...

is allowed execute all operations on loans (including with dates in the past)

...

dataentry1

...

password1

...

Custom Loan Portfolio

...

Introduction

Mifos X is an open technology platform for financial inclusion that provides the core functionality needed to deliver financial services to the world’s 2.5 billion unbanked.  It solves the challenge of core banking systems that are too expensive, too complicated or that have no local support.

Mifos X can be deployed in any environment: cloud or on-premise, on or offline, mobile or PC; it’s extensible enough to support any organizational type or delivery channel, and flexible enough to support any product, service, or methodology. For any organization, big or small, it will provide client data management, loan and savings portfolio management, integrated real time accounting and social and financial reporting needed to bring digital financial services in a modern connected world.  The platform is completely open via the Mozilla Public License 2.0.

The Mifos Initiative

The Mifos Initiative is a 501(c)3 non-profit incorporated in Washington State.  Its sole mission is to speed the elimination of poverty by enabling financial service providers to more effectively and efficiently deliver responsible financial services to the world’s 2.5 billion poor and unbanked. We guide the development of the Mifos X platform, an open platform for financial inclusion with a suite of simple configurable apps hosted in the cloud. We are a community of financial service providers, technology specialists, financial services experts and open source developers working together to grow this platform.

The Mifos X project spun out of the Grameen Foundation in 2011 and, thanks to generous support from Silicon Valley, The Mifos Initiative was revitalized as a U.S. based 503(c)3. Originally launched in 2006, the software was the industry’s first web-based and open source information system and was well-received winning the Duke’s Choice Award for Best Java Technology for The Open Source Community.  Redesigned and built around an API-centric, cloud-based software architecture, the Mifos X Platform is a modern, connected core banking system for responsible financial services organizations bringing basic financial services to the poor globally.

System Core Features

Mifos X is a globally used platform for all types of financial institutions.  See the current platform features here.  

Mifos X Mailing Lists

You are highly encouraged to sign-up for Mifos mailing lists. This is the place for developers and users of MifosX to share their learnings, experiences, and ask questions to the community. MifosX core contributors are friendly (a few of them even have a sense of humor!) and always ready and willing to help contributors out in these mailing lists. There are two mailing lists. Technical contributors are recommended to join both the lists. 

  1. Developer Mailing List
    1. To join: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mifos-developer
    2. To view online: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mifosdeveloper
  2. MifosX Users Mailing List
    1. To join: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mifos-users
    2. To view online: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mifosusers

Note: You must subscribe to the mailing list using the sourceforge link. When you join the mailing list, you will get an email. Click on "Reply" and send the email back to get subscribed to the mailing list. 

For chatting with the community members on IRC channel, and to understand emailing etiquette for the mailing lists, please refer: http://mifos.org/community/communications

How can you help Mifos X

We currently use JIRA to create issues and track work items going on in the project so its transparent and visible to all. If you are a newbie developer, and want to pick up relatively simpler work items to get familiar with MifosX, then you can browse through Work Items labelled as "Introductory". 

To get involved, review our Developer Zone.