Why MFIs love 42Gears UEM

Traditionally, verticals dealing with lots of data and/or money are known to tread the technology landscape very carefully. They deal with assets that are, mostly, not their own and hence the resistance to anything they perceive as remotely insidious. Microfinance companies are no different. The fact that their business is centered around deposits collected, primarily, from a low-income and vulnerable clientele also makes such institutions wary of investing in technologies that do not have a proven track record of being robust and reliable.

Today, microfinance is a heterogeneous financial market segment where self-sufficient, commercially viable, and profitable players are delivering a wide range of financial services. However, the intent of mobilizing public deposits calls for prudent regulation of MFIs since they have to manage the risks associated with their target clientele while lowering the costs that accompany very small transactions. 

According to BBVA, “The prudential regulation and supervision of microfinance institutions became inevitable once they became deposit-taking institutions.” A legal framework guarantees stability, improves efficiency, promotes healthy competition, and regulates the behavior of financial intermediation firms while offering reasonable protection to depositors and preventing the misuse of deposits.

However, it is not just the monetary assets that need to be managed. Advancements in technology and increasing competition have both led MFIs to start relying on mobile devices to enable on-field staff, streamline workflows and improve productivity. For most of these organizations, the usual procedure involves their staff traveling to remote/suburban areas to meet customers, upload information to their central database, and record transactions using smartphones/tablets. It goes without saying that devices used by these frontline workers need to be monitored and managed. In addition, the data stored on and accessed through such devices also need to be secured.

The need for a comprehensive, scalable solution to manage, monitor and secure business devices have led many of these MFIs to adopt unified endpoint management tools. The key criteria for choosing a UEM solution provider are compliance adherence and their platform’s ability to support multiple operating systems and offer remote troubleshooting capabilities. Turnaround time required by the vendor for resolving issues also plays a major role. Moreover, as not only do these devices need to be provisioned before issuance, they also have to be turned into dedicated-purpose tools (to prevent misuse) and secured (to mitigate the risks of a data breach), identifying the right UEM solution is imperative. 

MFIs and 42Gears UEM

42Gears UEM does all of this and more. Precisely why some of the big MFIs in APAC trust 42Gears UEM to meet their enterprise mobility needs. The solution’s ability to encrypt data at rest and in motion, and remotely wipe data off devices (at end-of-life or as employees leave the organization) makes it a strong UEM contender. The fact that 42Gears has been recognized for outstanding technical support also makes it an obvious choice.

Be it bulk provisioning, remote app installation or update, device tracking or generation of customs reports, renowned MFIs like Satin Creditcare, Asirvad Microfinance, Kinara Capital, GrameenKoota, Taraashna Financial Services Ltd., Samasta-Microfinance, Vistaar Finance, and Swadhaar Finserve rely on 42Gears UEM for ensuring that their business devices are secure and not being misused.