SPECIAL REPORT: MFR Launching Atlas Platform to Unify Data on Financial Performance, Social Performance, Pricing, Client Protection: a Preview at European Microfinance Week

Today, on the opening day of European Microfinance Week in Luxembourg, Lucia Spaggiari and Aldo Moauro of MicroFinanza Rating (MFR) described Atlas, a platform for collecting and analyzing data on microfinance. Atlas offers data on financial performance, social performance, pricing and client protection. The data sources include a range of data types from MFR, as well as pricing data from the now-closed NGO MicroFinance Transparency. These cover about 550 financial services providers (FSPs), including microbanks, financial technology (fintech) lenders, and funders of small and medium-sized enterprises. MFR has agreements in place with the French NGO Cerise and the US-based nonprofit Microfinance Information Exchange to bring their data online within the next few months. MFR also is uploading data from the financial statements that many FSPs must publish to meet regulatory requirements. The goal is to have Atlas offering three recent years of data on 1,000 FSPs by 2020.

Access to Atlas is available via various subscription categories, which range in cost from EUR 1,000 (USD 1,100) to EUR 20,000 (USD 22,000) per year. Organizations that submit data to Atlas may qualify for discounted pricing.

Mr Moauro said, “I think it’s quite revolutionary for our sector. We are talking about a one-stop shop…. It’s revolutionary because the quality of the data will be assured by the service.” The data will be tagged according to its reliability. While even self-reported data will be subjected to consistency checks, other data may be classified as more reliable based on several criteria, including whether a third-party organization has confirmed it by desk review or field visit.

Existing reporting tools such as Microfact’s MFI Factsheet can be synced with Atlas such that no reentry of data is needed. Investors can submit data to the service directly, or they may encourage or require their investees to do so. FSPs that report data to Atlas may view their data in the system and compare it with benchmark data for their region at no charge. They also may submit their data such that it is viewable to all or some investors, or it can be anonymous. However, Ms Spaggiari argues that, “There’s a lot of potential visibility FSPs can gain” by opening their data to all Atlas subscribers.

One of the goals of the system is to reduce MFIs’ reporting burdens. Mr Moauro asks, “Aren’t we an industry mature enough not to make FSPs submit 30 different reports?” Atlas also has flexible reporting options that can reduce investors’ needs for other tracking systems. These include pdf exports of benchmarking graphs and spreadsheet output of an organization’s own data.

Ms Spaggiari demonstrated how Atlas allows users to contrast the performance of one or more FSPs with those of its peers, based on various indicators of interest. In one or two clicks, she was able to change the default graphs from: (1) multi-year consolidated data to year-by-year; or (2) from showing a consolidated portfolio of FSPs to showing them one-by-one. Pricing data can be plotted loan-by-loan for a more comprehensive picture or product-by-product for a simpler one.

In terms of long-term viability, MFR plans to transition from grant funding to subscription-based income over the course of five years. The system is scheduled to go officially live in January.

This feature is part of a sponsored series on European Microfinance Week, which is taking place from November 20 through November 22, 2019. The event is held each year by e-MFP, and MicroCapital has been engaged to promote and document the event on-site each year since 2012.

Sources and Additional Resources

European Microfinance Week 2019
https://registration.european-microfinance-week.eu/emw2019

MFR homepage
http://www.mf-rating.com

MicroFinance Transparency homepage
http://www.mftransparency.org

Cerise homepage
https://cerise-spm.org

MIX homepage
https://themix.org

Microfact homepage
https://www.microfact.org

MicroCapital coverage of European Microfinance Week Since 2012
https://www.microcapital.org/category/european-microfinance-week/