2016 ICT4D Conference

CRS began piloting the PSP model in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda in August 2008 funded by Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, and by June 2012, the project had organized 378,523 community members into 17,157 SILC groups across the three countries. Kenya had achieved the highest outreach, with 145,568 members organized into 7,337 SILC groups and is enjoying the most success with the PSP model. SILC methodology is becoming popular not only in Kenya but it is a worldwide-accepted methodology, financially liberating many families from poverty in many countries in the world where CRS has projects and with over one million clients.

By the time the SILC Innovations project came to an end in June 2012, CRS felt that there was a need to finalize the PSP business model and develop a toolkit which could be used for scale up in the future. CRS developed a proposal for a one-year grant to FSD Kenya which was funded in September 2012. Using this one-year grant of Kshs 28,531,621 million, CRS finalized the development of the PSP business model to a stage it can be disseminated for roll-out and scale up in Kenya, other countries, and the wider microfinance industry. The project was ultimately extended through January 2014 with an overall budget of Kshs 31,869,686. The project has four thematic areas,e-recording,e-kit development,pro poor targeting and mlinkages.The project is at the final phase of implimenttion having realized close to 18,000 members in 840 Savings groups There are 48 new psps who have been certified and 3 new psp networks.
Of the of the close to 840 saving groups ,80% are reporting in the savix.This is after data collected from groups,being keyed in MIS and synced to the savixwebsite @ http://thesavix.org .There is also data collected using android e-recording application and data end up in e-recording portal which can be accessed by CRS and FSD kenya which is funding CRS for e-recording experiment
The e-Recording system is a combination of an android based mobile app and web portal that was designed and developed by Software Group for FSD Kenya to assist them with one of their core initiatives that involves improving the outreach of community based, informal finance in Kenya. The system was built with the savings group methodology in mind, making it useable across a large spectrum of savings groups using this methodology to carry out their group functions. This also makes it useable not only in Kenya but across a wider geographic coverage.
The mobile app is a tool used as a record keeping application, enabling groups perform activities such as defining their own constitution, registering members, defining fines or fees, savings and loan parameters that govern how much a member can save and borrow as well as capturing meeting activities such as member contributions, loan tracking, charging fines and fees and end of cycle share outs. Groups are able to back up their data after every meeting activity with the aim of increasing security of data and enabling group members to have access to a host of reports via a web portal.
With benefits such as speed of data capture, speed of share outs at the end of the cycle and security of information, the uptake of the e-Recording application has rapidly increased and to date has received positive feedback both from groups, facilitating agencies and other stakeholders in the sector. As a result of the success in Kenya, FSD Zambia has introduced the application to the Zambian market and piloted it with 12 savings groups who are actively using the application. Rwanda through World Relief has also implemented e-Recording with the app translated to Kinyarwanda for Rwanda market.
As part of providing better and efficient service deliveries to groups, Software Group has responded to a proposal by FSD Kenya to enhance the e-Recording application. The application changes proposed are as a result of feedback collected from savings groups in Kenya, Rwanda and Zambia as well as feedback from several meetings held with FSD Kenya and other
Most recently the e-recording was upgraded and the groups can also enjoy the following services-
a. The group can receive SMS notifications once the constitution has been amended within an active cycle. The group can also request for their balance by sending a message to a short code USSD.
b. The user interface for the current application has been improved by looking at symbols that resemble real world objects that anyone would recognize during transactions
c. Social fund have been separated from loan fund making it very easy to operate.
The SAVIX is a reporting system that provides transparent and standardized, self-reported data on SG programs worldwide.
For the last 5 years the SAVIX has regularly collected financial and operational data from savings group programs and reports on a current total of about 4.5 million members in about 206,000 savings groups, created by more than 790 projects in 43 countries. It does this by automatically posting real-time project data through the online SAVIX MIS (www.mis.thesavix.org), updated daily.
The aim of the site is to facilitate analysis and improve operational practice, by comparing regional, country, project and trainer performance and reporting on long-term research findings.CRS Kenya program has two projects reporting on the savix and lessons learnt on the process will be used to roll out this real time record keeping system to the rest of all the projects in Kenya using SG SILC methodology