IST (GMT +5:30)

Our AngularJS Web App is the standard application on the Mifos X distribution that provides all the core functionality for the most common methods of financial inclusion and products and services. It's also the starting point for any partners looking to customize or extend the UI. It's constantly being improved based on user feedback, better performance, and to integrate new design standards.

In 2016, our Google Summer of Code intern refactor, re-designed, and re-skinned the Web App. This project would continue by making additional UI enhancements including:

• Redesign the client, group, and center records
• Redesign the loan and summary savings pages
• Implement Wizard UI product and account creation
• Implement UI for workflows & data table entity checks
• Improve the collection sheet UI
• Extend the notifications framework
• Improve interface for role-based dashboards.
  Performance improvements by introducing on demand loading
  
  
  

We have released a full set of client-facing APIs to enable self-service channels for clients to interact with their own data and transact in a self-service manner. Previously all Mifos operations were performed by back office staff. Now clients can authenticate themselves, view and edit their account details. and make repayments or transactions between their own accounts.

It is now possible for them to have direct banking apps that they can utilize including smartphone-based mobile banking, USSD-based mobile banking, and online banking via a web app.

The focus of this project would be building out a clean and simple AngularJS application that can be used as a reference web app for financial institutions to directly deploy and offer to their customers or for our our support partners to customize and enhance to the local needs of their market.

There currently is a proof of concept architecture that can be used as a starting point along with detailed wireframes and user stories.

Allows a member/client in having a self-service channel allowing them more direct control and visibility into their financial livelihood.

Self Service APIs - https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/Customer+Self-Service

Source Code - https://github.com/openMF/web-self-service-app

Complete Details can be found here: Self Service Web Application

As financial inclusion evolves, more loan products are collateral-based and require more detailed tracking of the asset (gold, property, etc.) along with its value, and its depreciation.

Some institutions also require tracking collateral as off-balance sheet items.

We have a complete specification in place and need a team to build out a new module on top of the platform that tracks the additional collateral values. The work involved includes creation of new APIs and database tables to track additional parameters for the collateral, and to build out the UI screens for this module.

If the off-balance sheet collateral tracking is included, the work will also require extending the general ledger to support new types of accounts that are off-balance sheet.

Clients and Small Businesses are able to take out higher value loans when they can offer up different forms of collateral. This is essential as MFIs move beyond just group loans and to individual lending.

Data migration can be one of the most challenging and time-consuming phases of an implementation of a core banking system. In 2013, GSOC intern, Avik Ganguly, built our data import tool for generating pre-configured Excel templates to migrate data into Mifos X. In 2014, Diunuge, extended this to other types of information in Mifos X along with integrating it from a stand-alone web app to a core part of the platform. The data import tool is now the foundation for all of our data migration tools.

It has become a critical part of independent and partner-led deployments

This project would continue to extend the data import tool with the following enhancements:

• Integration into the Platform: Current implementation is stand-alone and user has to install separately from Fineract - has to be deployed, user downloads templates, adds data, uses remote call against Fineract REST API
• Templates at Office/Staff Level: Currently all download templates try to fetch data for entire organization which becomes problematic when you have larger oganizations (10 branches/10000customers) - templates should be specific to office or given staff
• Extend functional coverage of data import tool - Data import tool didn't cover all functionalities - want to upload bulk chart of accounts, data tables, etc.o new types of data and APIs that need to be imported, enabling office-level import, and continued integration into the platform.
• Batch APIs - instead of single thread, make use of executing services and start configured thread - if hundred objects are created - JDBC template - batch APIs- some entities.

It has many impacts

1. This drastically reduces the time to set up of initial configuration/data of Mifos X for organization adopting this system as MIS.
2. For data entry operator, this feature can be used as bulk creation option (such as import bulk loans, import clients)
3. These templates can be used as offline store. And once user has internet connectivity can upload these templates with captured data.

Mifos X and the Apache Fineract platform already provide a range of sophisticated financial accounting needs, however for organizations that use it as both their core banking system and accounting system all in one, they continue to need other features. While Mifos X never intends to replace an ERP or accounting package, we do want to continue to add additional functionalities that provide the necessary integration with the portfolio and general accounting functionality to support a financial institution's core operations.

Several features have been requested by users and partners that we've grouped together as one task. Applicants should be familiar with the stack as well as the accounting and financial services domain.

Some of this work will include finalizing and incorporating existing pull requests and contributions that have been made by partners.

These enhancements will all be built into the Apache Fineract platform as part of or enhancements on top of the existing accounting module which provides full configuration of the chart of accounts, support for cash and accrual accounting, automated integration with the portfolio accounts and financial mappings, and single and compound journal entries to the general ledger. New enhancements include:

• Recurring Journal Entries (see spec below)
• Bank Reconciliation
• Fixed Asset Register
• Improved End of Period Processing

Better internal control and financial transparency

As financial inclusion evolves, more loan products are collateral-based and require more detailed tracking of the asset (gold, property, etc.) along with its value, and its depreciation.

Some institutions also require tracking collateral as off-balance sheet items.

We have a complete specification in place and need a team to build out a new module on top of the platform that tracks the additional collateral values. The work involved includes creation of new APIs and database tables to track additional parameters for the collateral, and to build out the UI screens for this module.

If the off-balance sheet collateral tracking is included, the work will also require extending the general ledger to support new types of accounts that are off-balance sheet.

Clients and Small Businesses are able to take out higher value loans when they can offer up different forms of collateral. This is essential as MFIs move beyond just group loans and to individual lending.

A crucial part of financial inclusion is micro-insurance and the ability for clients to safely manage risk in their lives. Mifos X will not fully handle the entire lifecycle of an insurance product but it should integrate with microinsurance system and track the key parts of the process that relate to the core banking system - collection and pass through of the premium and tracking claims and processing of these.

This project would involve building out a separate module that tracks claims being made by a client, likely leveraging the CRM functionality being build to track activities. It will integrate with APIs to enable processing of the claim and tracking what proceeds must be paid out to the client.

It will involve creating a new module with data model, UI screens and business logic that leverages Mifos X APIs

Tasks involved include:

1. Implementing a flag at the client level to denote if a person is deceased - if deceased, all loans would go into different status where all income, interest, fees, etc should stop accruing.
2. Utilize Data Tables to enable a user to initiate an insurance claim with details of the claim and corresponding updates to follow up on the claims process. Must limit this data table only to the clients with the corresponding flag so it's not displayed for all clients.
3. Processing of Claims - the insurance claim can either go directly to the client or directly to the Financial Institution. If directly to the FI, the outstanding amonst should be offset by the claim - it could be automatically applied using a new different payment of insurance claim. Corresponding accounting entries need to get passed as well.
   1. If there is money to be refunded to customer, they must have a savings account as can''t like journal entry to customer directly.
4. Closing of Account - once claim has been processed and outstanding balance settled, should implement a different status such as Closed - Deceased or Closed - Via Insurance Claim

Clients are able to lower their risk and have a much larger safety net when they have affordable access to insurance policies.

See http://www.openunderwriter.com/

See Insurance Product

A critical barrier to greater scale and reach of the Mifos X software is the time to deploy and ease of onboarding new financial institutions Spinning up a new instance and tenant of Mifos X in the Cloud is rather trivial but Mifos X is a core banking system and a user struggles to independently get the system up and running in spite of having access to documentation or local support.

• Provide a self-guided configuration wizard to help financial institutions more quickly and more independently set up and configure the Mifos X system for the first time. 
• Ideal goal is to allow a financial institution to fully configure Mifos without any manual intervention or support from an individual - from signing up for the cloud to moving into production, they should be able to do everything on their own. 

This project would involve building into the Mifos X Web App a self-guided configuration wizard.

Upon initial log-in, user will be prompted with a wizard as part of the Community App that will walk them through the first stages of configuring Mifos. The wizard which is optional and can declined, should provide the user the necessary prompts to guide them through the administrative setup of their organization and hierarchical structure, configuration of staff and roles and permissions, configuration of financial accounting, creation and configuration of loan and savings products, configuration of reporting and initial data entry. 

• Wizard should provide both overlays on the screen as well as advance user to specific areas of the application. 
• Wizard should refer to and reference documentation and video tutorials as much as possible.
• Wizard should follow steps outlined in the Initial System Setup and Pre-Configuration Plan. 

Financial institutions can more easily adopt the software and increase the scale of our social mission.

See

• Spec: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/Configuration+Wizard
• Documentation: Initial System Setup and Pre-Configuration Plan. 

Financial Inclusion providers need a comprehensive view into the overall livelihood of their client both for better risk analysis, credit scoring, as well as social performance management.

We have the back-end in place for a surveys/social performance management framework that allows the import of XMLs for the PPI (progress out of poverty index) SPM scorecard. We need to implement a front-end UI for viewing and recording PPI surveys as well as a UI in which to create new surveys from scratch (similar to Question Groups in an older version of software).

1) Build out the UI for creating survey from available PPI scorecard
2) Capture/record surveys from a given entity in the web app
3) View recorded surveys from the web ap
4) Interface to create new surveys from scratch via the UI

See Resources below for specs/wireframes.

Ability to measure social impact and have one single point of information on a client within the platform.

GSOC 2013 - Data Import Tool

GSoC 2014 - Data Import/Export feature

As financial inclusion evolves, complexity too, we will build an enterprise social driven platform which increases communication with focus on business and control on small but complex automation of tasks.

We have a complete specification in place and need a team to build out a new module on top of the platform that will driven by the concepts of social parameters like instant chat and message based data movement and total UI overhaul

Clients and Small Businesses are able to interact in a manner without making it complex.

Data migration can be one of the most challenging and time-consuming phases of an implementation of a core banking system. In 2013, GSOC intern, Avik Ganguly, built our data import tool for generating pre-configured Excel templates to migrate data into Mifos X. In 2014, Diunuge, extended this to other types of information in Mifos X along with integrating it from a stand-alone web app to a core part of the platform. The data import tool is now the foundation for all of our data migration tools.

It has become a critical part of independent and partner-led deployments

This project would continue to extend the data import tool with the following enhancements:

• Integration into the Platform: Current implementation is stand-alone and user has to install separately from Fineract - has to be deployed, user downloads templates, adds data, uses remote call against Fineract REST API
• Templates at Office/Staff Level: Currently all download templates try to fetch data for entire organization which becomes problematic when you have larger oganizations (10 branches/10000customers) - templates should be specific to office or given staff
• Extend functional coverage of data import tool - Data import tool didn't cover all functionalities - want to upload bulk chart of accounts, data tables, etc.o new types of data and APIs that need to be imported, enabling office-level import, and continued integration into the platform.
• Batch APIs - instead of single thread, make use of executing services and start configured thread - if hundred objects are created - JDBC template - batch APIs- some entities.

• Import for other types of data not currently supported
• Integrate into platform
• Populate date using bulk APIs
• Enable office-level imports for larger organizations who find it too cumbersome to migrate an entire organizations worth of data at once
  
  

It has many impacts

1. This drastically reduces the time to set up of initial configuration/data of Mifos X for organization adopting this system as MIS.
2. For data entry operator, this feature can be used as bulk creation option (such as import bulk loans, import clients)
3. These templates can be used as offline store. And once user has internet connectivity can upload these templates with captured data.

2016 Design for Integration of Data Import Tool - https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/Bulkdata+Import

GSOC 2013 - Data Import Tool

GSoC 2014 - Data Import/Export feature

As Mifos X has matured as a core banking platform, it's been adopted and used by larger institutions serving hundreds of thousands and even millions of clients. Partners operating cloud-hosted subscription models are also supporting hundreds of thousands of clients across their multi-tenant installations. We need to benchmark, analyze and improve the performance and scalability of the system.

Enhancements to the back-end platform will include parallelization of all the jobs with a configurable amount of concurrency, look at the explain plans of the queries being used in the jobs, paginate input queries for jobs, put lazy fetching where required, node-aware scheduler and cache, office-wise configurable jobs to distribute job-load across servers and write some tests to prove that the concurrency will work for a decent amount of scale.

In addition, you'll provide some metrics which can help mid-sized MFIs (those having around a million active loans) in adopting Mifos X.

As our product is core banking platform and our clients are financial institutions, we strive hard to make our code base as secure as possible. However, due to ever increasing security threats and vulnerabilities, it is the need of hour that we analyse our code base in depth for security vulnerabilities. During pull request merge process, we have a process in place wherein we do peer code review,QA and integration tests. This practice has been very effective and our community is already reaping the benefits of such a strong code review process. However, we should test our code against the standard vulnerabilities which have been identified by reputed organisations like Mitre to gain more confidence.It has become a critical part of independent and partner-led deployments

We can make use of opensource tools like Jlint, Findbugs , SonarQube or frameworks like  Total output Integration Framework (TOIF) - used by companies dedicated to produce military grade secure systems. 

It would be worthwhile, if we can dedicate one GSOC project for this analysis. The student would be responsible to analyse the findings, generate reports, identify if it is really a bug and then submit a fix after consultation from the community. Of course, the student needs to demonstrate some basic understanding of security vulnerabilities( like buffer overflow etc) and should have some academic level of experience working with static analysis tools.

Improved security keeping the integrity and privacy of the underbank's financial data intact.

Before booking a loan, the customer needs to require and assess the details of the loan he is enquiring for and there is no way to personally judge it, based on the parameters, Sales staff right now is using different external loan calculator and loan product schemes are not documented. We need a frontend experience service with personalized match to loan products.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18rS0gVWkjQvNdRnNj40uKNl32zuTh-uuzNv161n6YrY/edit?usp=sharing

In the current version of the MIFOS X/Apache Fineract there is no way where we can infuse the product to machine learning straight to the Algorithms and then start predicting around certain entities and models or domains with integration of finocial.ai we can now do that by including a lib which will send data to the existing cluster running a finocial.ai and letting the partners/FI to decide what kind of learning tool they want to use and generate a POJO or MODEL and thus start predicting using that MODEL

Major use cases are predicting BAD Loans Or GOOD Loans, Predicting Fraud ,RISK and many other predictions which FI wants to do on certain Domain, Logic where FI can utilise to understand customer in a better way.

FINOCIAL.AI Provides better way Personal profile data, spending history, social media data, transaction data, asset information and demographic data can provide a much more holistic view of a prospective client, instead of past credit scores. In this age of data abundance, the financial services industry can take advantage of new data sources when approaching a decision to approve a purchase or a credit card application, stop a withdrawal or recommend new financial products.

Finocial.Chain is a private Open Source blockchain platforms for FI/MFI and Everyone which will enable customers and FI to transact directly without a network dependency.

It allows any FI to securitise customer data and perform different kind of transactions in different Entities of MIFOS X such as Smart Contracts, Managing Digital Identity and Running their own economy of Currency

Remittances

Micropayments

Mobile Money

Services for the Underbanked

Digital Assets

Finocial Contracts

Agent Banking has become a key new delivery channel to increase reach, lower cost, and broaden the depth of services available. We will be taking over the Egalite codebase that's being donated to the Mifos Initiative by BFSI Consulting - it's a fully functional Android-based app for agents that works with any core banking system. This project would involved extending the application so it fully integrates with and works on top of the Mifos X platform

The current codebase is stand-alone and can integrate with any core banking system. This project will involve converting it to work on top of Mifos X by leveraging the Mifos X APIs for all functionalities that exist in Mifos X and adding in APIs for the functionalities that aren't present in Mifos X but in Egalite. The project will consist of the following:

By enabling branchless banking, the costs of serving the poor are dramatically lowered, outreach can be extended to rural offerings, and brand new products and services that are more relevant can be delivered.

• Egalite Functional Overview - See http://bfsiconsulting.com/?page_id=179
• Egalite Architectural Overview
• Egalite User Manuals

This has a dependency on the Self-Service backend API's being available 

Allows a member/client in having a self-service channel allowing them more direct control and visibility into their financial livelihood. Enable members of the society on-demand access to their.financial records even with basic mobile handset

Mobile money is rapidly transforming financial inclusion by providing more immediate, impactful, affordable, and secure financial services to the client. Mobile money platforms like M-Pesa offer the client unparalleled value in terms of convenience, security and the possibility of new services and products that are more in line with real-world financial habits.  For financial institutions and their clients to fully scale mobile money and leverage its potential, it needs to be fully integrated with their core-banking system.

In 2016, GSOC intern Daniel Carlson, built out an initial mobile money integration module which supports capturing in real-time the transactions that occur in the mobile money system via the APIs along with a web interface for initiating transactions to occur via mobile money.

This project would work extend upon this module to continue genericizing it to support the mobile money APis of other countries and to complete the integrations for mobile money systems or aggregators in East Africa from countries such as Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda s M-Pesa, TigoCash, MTN Money, AirtelMoney, Beyonic, etc.

Great efficiency, reduced risk for clients, more impactful and relevant products & services.

•   Research & Data on Various Mobile Money Platforms  - http://goo.gl/XkSbdl
• Mobile Money Integration Module - Source Code - https://github.com/openMF/mobile-money-module

Mobile money is rapidly transforming financial inclusion by providing more immediate, impactful, affordable, and secure financial services to the client. Mobile money platforms like Orange Money and MTN Mobile Money offer the client unparalleled value in terms of convenience, security and the possibility of new services and products that are more in line with real-world financial habits.  For financial institutions and their clients to fully scale mobile money and leverage its potential, it needs to be fully integrated with their core-banking system.

Hence integrating Mobile money and Orange money to Mifos X in Central and West Africa will give the MFI an edge over their competitors and assist the client to carry out secured distance transactions. The end product of this project should allow a client to save from his mobile money account to his MifosX account, request or withdraw money from his Mifos X account to his mobile money account using probably a small mobile application to carry out these transactions. The Client self service API will be used in its fullness to accomplish this Tasks. Other APIs could be developed and used if the present Client self service API are not able to this these.

In 2016, GSOC intern Daniel Carlson, built out an initial mobile money integration module which supports capturing in real-time the transactions that occur in the mobile money system via the APIs along with a web interface for initiating transactions to occur via mobile money.

This project would work extend upon this module to continue genericizing it to support the mobile money APis of other countries and to complete the integrations for mobile money systems or aggregators in West and Central Africa from countries such as Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Gambia, and Sierra Leone.

Great efficiency, reduced risk for clients, more impactful and relevant products & services.

• Research & Data on Various Mobile Money Platforms  - http://goo.gl/XkSbdl
• Mobile Money Integration Module - Source Code - https://github.com/openMF/mobile-money-module

Microfinance institutions usually work with various external parties, such as funders or investors. Using the data that is available in MifosX we would like to offer those stakeholders a seperate portal showing accurate and high-level information about the institution that would otherwise be reported manually by the institution. This information helps them in their decision making processes, but also enables them to assess the broader impact they are having with their funding.

To develop a portal that aggregates information from different Mifos X deployments and report on predefined social and operational metrics

Objectives:

• Implement back-end logic in MifosX required to make information available to the client impact portal
• Implement UI and back-end logic of the Client impact portal

2014 GSOC Client Impact Portal Project

• Client Impact Portal User Guide
• GSoC 2014 - Client Impact Portal
• Source Code: https://github.com/openMF/mifosx/pull/1047

Vision for Generic SPM Framework for Mifos X (PPI)

Background on Client Impact Portal

• Client Impact Portal
• Data Analytics & Client Insight - Are we making an impact? (Client Impact Portal demo)
• Client Impact Portal POC - (mifos/password are login credentials)

Because of regulatory reasons or to do background check of a client (risk management), MFIs depend on credit bureaus. As part of it, MFI must submit client details to credit bureau and also need to pull client information from credit bureau before approving any new loans to a client.Mifos X can be integrated with a popular CBs in India and from other regions (based on the demand).

During the 2016 Google Summer of Code, Nikhil Pawar, completed the credit bureau integration module with integrations for the major credit bureaus in India. This project will continue extending the functionality of the module and work on integrations with the major credit bureaus in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa.

The major functionality will be sending the data to CBs on regular intervals in the format CB expects. And option to pull the client’s information from CB whenever loan officer/branch manager/ user wants to view the information for a particular client.

The credit report shows account information such as repayment record, defaults, type of loan, amount of loan, etc. of the customer. This information facilitates prudent decision-making when the credit underwriter processes the loan application. This help MFI to reduce the risk of bad loans and reduces the multiple lendings to same person from different MFIs.

Detailed requirements https://goo.gl/aZWMZa

Mifos Credit bureau Integration. (Risk calibration Module -RCM)

Source Code: https://github.com/apache/incubator-fineract/pull/215

Right now Mifos X contains core client management functionalities including tracking basic demographic information, know your customer information, document management, and survey collection through data tables. As financial institutions, serving the poor begin to offer a more in-depth and diverse range of financial inclusion products, the need for more robust client management and in-depth client understanding has growsgrown. Their core system needs to provide more and more CRM-type functionality that complement compliment the portfolio management and financial/social reporting that the Mifos X provides.

This project will work to deliver the initial set of customer relationship management functionalities including a module for tracking inquiries, complaints

This module will have a request management functionality. A request can be of 2 types: Complaints and Service Requests. Each request must be against a customer and optionally against an account of the customer. Each request will go through a simple workflow.

Actions that can be performed on a request:

Assign -> will change status to "assigned"

Start Work --> will change status to "in progress"

Close --> will change status to "closed" (with a sub-reason code)

At each step user can enter comments.

The customer summary screen will have a link to view the requests of the customer - along with a summary and current status - with option options to click-through to get the complete history of each request.

Deepening the client relationship and ensuring fair, responsible, and transparent financial services to the poor is a core piece of the industry's roadmap for financial inclusion. Providing customers the ability to voice their concerns and feedback about the services they're receiving provides a simple yet powerful tool to protect the client. Empowering the financial institution with the ability to track these inquiries and overall maintain a more holistic relationship tracking entire lifecycle of their clients gives them a much better ability to understand their clients and respond to their needs with appropriately designed services and products.

Integrate MifosX with an opensource Point of Sale (POS) called JPOS.

Use case would be to get a debit transaction (cash withdraw from checking account) thru the POS device /local runtime with 2FA.  In India, the ability to get cash out through a point of sale network is provided for under RBI regulations. In production there will likely need to be an intermediate "Merchant Acquisition" or "Payment Processor" in between a single POS and MifosX Instance, but this could be abstracted out as a payment gateway only (primarily data mapping). The implementation target is the ability to do a 2 factor authentication on a POS device running JPOS (emulator ok), input account number (via some simple method), then be able to do a (cash-out) account withdrawal in real time to the MifosX account. Additional use cases would be to implement a transaction for payment for goods. i.e. enter specific goods, then do payment from MifosX account to Merchant Account (probably also in Mifos).

Familiarity with API work. Understanding of transactional flows.

Java.

Two-factor authentication - see other project idea .

https://github.com/jpos/jPOS/