Easing microfinance with software business

Hans Verkoijen, the Executive Director of Crystal Clear Software Limited confesses it was not an easy transformation that saw him turn into an entrepreneur. He was your usual employee and later consultant to financial institutions by the time he came to Uganda (April 1995). It is this support work with Financial Institutions that launched him into software development for the microfinance sector and the birth of a twenty eight man strong IT team.

Hans studied Social Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam and then worked as an Accountant in the Netherlands and as an auditor in the microfinance sector in Burkina Faso before he came to Uganda to support the Uganda Women Finance Trust. When he left UWFT he saw an opportunity that would define the rest of his career.

Crystal Clear Software Limited started in 1998 as a one man business with a single client. Today, it boasts of 320 clients from all over Africa with over 700 installed sites in 50 different countries. The company deals in developing and marketing a micro-finance software programme called Loan Performer, a widely used Management Information System in the micro-finance sector. According to Mr Verkoijen: “Loan Performer (the company’s signature software) is the leading micro-finance product in Africa, whether it is in the Sahara desert or deep in the bush in Congo, you will find organisations using our software”.

Like all entrepreneurs, finding the right employees has not come easy for him and the company. As Uganda does not offer programmers with the required know-how, many of the programmers are hired from neighbouring Kenya. However, more and more Ugandan team members have been sourced and trained. The team of programmers and trainers from the company works with a wide network of representatives in different countries, who train microfinance organizations and give them on-site support.

The Loan Performer scheme has modules for clients, shares, savings, loans and accounting. It has been translated into English, French, Spanish and Russian by the company itself and there is also a Portugese version, developed by local partners. The software enables everything to be automatically booked into the general ledger and at the end of the day, the user simply prints the trial balance or income and expense statement.

Certified with the ISO9001:2008 Quality Management System Award, the company is not new to quality recognition. In 2005, the company received the African SMME awards in the information and communication technology sector. The award was given by the Centre for Investment Analysis of the University of Stellenbosch Business School in South Africa. The company also received a Silver award in the Fifth President’s Export Awards for being the biggest exporter in the ICT category as well as the Investor of the Year award 2003 for the best software development by the Uganda Investment Authority.

The company is soon outing version 8 of their Loan Performer software, which, Mr Verkoijen hopes, will also be used by the higher end clients like banks. It has been a major effort with several programmers working on this product for several years. Its features include Wide Area Networking, Mobile Banking, multi-currency, a poverty alleviation module, standing orders, savings accounts with cheque books as well as fingerprint scanning.

According to Hans, the biggest opportunity cost has been family time. “My family has really suffered since my transformation. I don’t spend as much time with them, I don’t have holidays anymore. Even though the company is up and running I still spend up to twelve hours a day at work”, he says. But the results are visible; he shows off the bigger office space and the list of clientele.

One would think, that this is the time for him to slow down. Far from it. Much as he delegates some travel to other team members to support and train clients, the vision is yet to be achieved.