The authors were particularly interested in information technology (IT) and computerised information systems. The principal question in this area is whether to use an off-the-shelf standardised package or to pay more to have a fully-customised system, or perhaps some hybrid of the two. The majority of respondents indicated the use of a mixed manual and computerised system, though about a third indicated that they used a purely manual system. Most large MFIs use computers for loan tracking, but a fully-integrated system – one in which one entry into a computer database is fed automatically through all levels of the system – was not seen as necessary to manage a large portfolio.

Interestingly, a majority of respondents indicated that they were using IT systems that were either fully customised (24% of respondents) or partially customised (30%). This tends to imply the existence of an in-house IT department, and indeed 58% of the institutions queried had permanent IT staff, 93% of which were given the task of developing future systems as well as maintaining the current ones. Of the off-the-shelf products available, FAO’s MicroBanker is the most widely-used system in the world, but only four respondents said they used it. MicroBanker and two other systems permit some adaptation of the system’s functioning by system administrators rather than programmers, but there is a real danger that a computerised system and its limited flexibility could determine financial product design itself, a clear example of the “tail wagging the dog”. Moreover, as of 1999, none of the three systems which permit product flexibility showed much skill at generating new management information about non-standard products or adapting the report style to reflect new financial products. Discouragingly, even systems in development at time of writing did not, in general, allow the easy incorporation of new products.

Information management appears to be a difficult area for many MFIs. Two areas of weakness need improving: first, there is a lack of understanding of information problems and possible solutions, and second, there is an absence of software packages appropriate to the sector. IT management remains a highly specialised sector and this may continue to be a barrier to solving the above problems. This article is an interesting starting-point for MFIs considering how to approach the problem of data management, but it seems likely that the market in information systems for rural finance has developed significantly over the last six years, and a new survey is needed to reflect the current situation.