Mentors International, a non-profit organisation that uses microenterprise, mentoring, and business training to alleviate poverty worldwide, is implementing Mambu's cloud banking platform across its entire network, spanning five countries worldwide.
Currently active in the Philippines, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Peru, Mentors International has helped more than 3.3 million individuals escape poverty through the formation of small businesses with loans funded by Mentors.
Previously Mentors had deployed a database system on a standalone basis in each country where it operates. An offline system, this made data extraction, aggregation and reporting a labour-intensive task, that was error-prone and difficult to manage. With its new cloud-based Mambu implementation, Mentors will be able to easily customise the solution to support individual country requirements, and will also gain greater visibility of its entire portfolio, providing both field managers and Mentors HQ with greater transparency and insight into its operations.
Mentors plans to use Mambu's open APIs to connect with local payment systems, and will also deploy Mambu's recently announced offline mode for Mambu Mobile, ensuring its staff can work offline, even if their internet connection fails, as is often the case in remote areas.
"With access to the internet becoming ever more ubiquitous, Mambu's cloud-based platform will improve our operational efficiency, enabling us to more easily demonstrate our social impact and improve financial transparency for our staff and our donor community," Adriano Oliveira, director of international operations at Mentors International. "Mambu was the obvious choice because it supports our diverse product range across our operations in multiple geographic locations, and can be rolled out to support any future countries, with no additional investment required."
Mentors met with Mambu at the Microcredit Campaign Summit in Manila in 2013, and began working with Mambu on a phased roll out in April 2014. Mentors plans to go live in the Philippines and Guatemala by end of June 2014, with Honduras, El Salvador and Peru going live in second half of 2011.
Eugene Danilkis, co-founder and chief executive of Mambu said "Multinational microfinance networks stand to gain a lot by standardizing technology across their network. A cloud platform gives them real-time transparency into their network from donor level down to the social impact for every individual client. Mambu enables networks like Mentors International to bring their services to their clients, innovate on flexible products and focus on the core mission and impact on the communities."