RB2000 Users Conference

The Vision Bank Experience Antonio Jimenez, Jr.

Background VisionBank, Inc. The VisionBank, Incorporated is the rural financial institution established by ARDCI to house its saving and lending activity. It opened its doors wide to the public for the first time in October 2002 with main office at Bato, Catanduanes. ARDCI owns 87% of its capital stock and 99% of its voting stock. ARDCI plans to register the other five NGO branches to VisionBank this year. The branch offices will be located in Baras, Virac, Viga, Caramoran and San Andres.

Company Profile Name:Vision Bank Address:Poblacion Libon, Bato, Catanduanes Type:Microfinance Oriented Bank Branches:One (1) Date Incorporated:March 2002 # Employees:26

Accounts Profile # Savings Accts:4000 # Loan Accounts4000 Loan Products:REM, Chattel, Salary Loans & Microfinance (Individual & Group) Ave. Transactions / Day: Regular Savings Micro-Loans Average Loan SizeP18,000 to P25,000

Proximity to Manila By plane – 1 hour and 15 minutes By land via Tabaco, Albay – 12 hours bus ride and 3 – 4 hours ferry

RB2000 Setup Hardware –File Server – IBM xSeries 325, dual processor, Pentium 4 – Xeon, 1-GB RAM, Three (3) 36GB Raid 5 Hard disks –Local Area Network (LAN) Teller(s), Bookkeepers, and other users Software –Windows 2000 Small Business Server (SBS) –Workstations: Windows Me, Windows XP

RB2000 Setup Installed Modules: –Deposit Management Module (DMM) –Loan Management Module (LMM) –General Ledger Module (GLM) –Server-based installation but not integrated (non-GLI) Technical Support –By Phone –Bug fixes and patches are sent through –On-call remedial visits

Issues & Concerns No proper Gap and Requirement Analysis done Hands-on training was conducted for only 2- days Bank’s existing procedures cannot be accommodated by the previous installed version e.g. entry of payments was designed initially for individual micro-loans Report formats are not compliant to internal and external reportorial requirements

Issues & Concerns Very slow End-of-Day Process (2 to 3 hours) Slow transaction processing time – due to initial hardware setup Users’ Manual was not provided in hardcopy and ISSEC did not inform the bank that electronic copies are available at the File Server Backup and Restore procedure was done through the SQL Enterprise Manager which is risky and requires high-level technical expertise Independent scripts and programs were executed during the early implementation of RB2000

Issues & Concerns Installing RB2000 needs full time ISSEC personnel ISSEC personnel visits the bank almost every month during the first year of implementation “EFFECT: The users were throwing negative feedback to the RB2000 System and the bank’s Board almost decided to replace the RB2000 System”

Status (Now) Re-training of RB2000 staff for one-week in 2003 by ISSEC with MABS presence –Users now are comfortable in using the system –Minimal downtime experience ISSEC provided full-time technical support to address the following: –Programming bugs –Non-compliant reports –Enhance functionality to address procedural gaps

Status (Now) To address slow processing time: –Developed batch entry routine for group lending –Separated the batch entry for required savings from loan amortization payment routine –Purging of database files –Created a separate database solely for loan processing –The data entry screen also provides selection for clients with loan borrowings from deposit-only clients –The bank has also upgraded the hardware component New file server Acquired better Ethernet Switch

Status (Now) “EFFECT: The users are now very satisfied with the performance of the RB2000 System: Start-of-Day Processing time is less than 10 minutes (from 3 hours) Interactive processing time is now twice as fast as before Reports are now compliant to the required format ISSEC personnel has only visited once this year and is due for another visit in October 2005 The Board has decided to install the RB2000 System to future branches to be opened

Advice to Fellow Users Top management should be involved in the decision process to acquire and use any banking system Require your rollout companies to conduct a thorough gap analysis before installing the system Require an extensive and comprehensive training before implementing or using the RB2000 system The bank should, in turn, follow the recommended computer hardware requirements

Advice to Fellow Users The bank should employ an internal IT staff or systems administrator to minimize the cost The bank should always document the concerns and problems encountered and the corresponding resolutions It is not advisable to use the General Ledger Interface if both LMM and DMM have not been stable yet. Vision Bank has not implemented the GLI yet.