There are different kinds of credits, savings and insurances in ASA to assist the poor. They use the loan money to direct different income generating activities (IGA), which help them to meet the expanses of their daily life. On the other hand, savings and insurance shield them against sudden dangers. These also help them to observe different occasions or responsibilities.

.Small Loan (Female)

This loan is for the poor women and service charge is 12.5% yearly. Duration of this product is one year.

.Small Loan (Male)

This product is for the husband/guardian of a female member and the yearly service charge is 12.5%. Duration of this loan is one year.
 

.Small Business Loan

This loan is for the poor clients, who run small business and service charge of this product is 12.5% (yearly). Duration of this loan is one year.
 

.Small Entrepreneur Lending

Small and emerging entrepreneurs are provided this loan with 12.5% yearly service charge. Duration of this loan is 1/1.5/2 years.
 

.Hardcore Poor Loan

The poorest people of the remote and poverty affected areas are provided this loan and the service charge of this product is 12.5% (yearly). Duration of this loan is one year.
 

.Education Loan

This loan is for the higher education of the group members' children and yearly service charge is 10%. Duration of this loan is one year.

.Business Development Services (BDS)

There are some members who fail to repay their loans due to different unexpected problems. This loan is for those members, so that, they can overcome these problems. Service charge of this loan is 12.5% yearly. Duration of this loan is flexible.
 

.Short Term Loan

Small and emerging entrepreneurs are provided this loan with 12.5% yearly service charge to meet their urgent need. This loan also ensures proper utilization of organization's idle fund. Duration of this loan is one to three months.
 

.Rehabilitation Loan

This loan is for the victims of the natural disaster and there is no service charge of this product. Duration of this loan is flexible.
 

.IT Loan

This loan is to assist the growing need of the IT sector and service charge is 12.5% with 1 year/1.5 year/2 years.
 

.Agri-business Loan

This loan is for the members, who are directly or indirectly related with agricultural activities and service charge is 12.5% with 1/ 1.5/ 2 years.
 

Members of ASA are provided with money for treatment of their major/critical diseases. This is a voluntary service of ASA and members don't have to pay any premium to get this service. Tk. 49.03 million has been sanctioned for 2008. During January-December 2007, ASA has provided Tk. 8.97 million among members as health assistance.

Member Security Fund (mini life insurance)

Female members are also allowed to introduce insurance for their husbands or guardians and weekly premium is Tk. 10 for the program. If the male member dies, respective inheritors are provided with three times of the total deposit. Otherwise, they are returned the total deposit with proper interest rate. During the year 2007, ASA has paid Tk. 8.76 million to the families of 5,778 deceased members.

ASA charges premiums of only Tk. 3 for per 1000 (thousand) loan to provide this insurance. The outstanding loan is adjusted in full as the insurance benefits if a member dies with outstanding loan.

During the year 2007, ASA made the adjustment or provided payment of Tk. 47.76 million to the families of 10,022 deceased members. 

ASA has been providing assistance in all the districts of the country through 3,333 branches. At present, a number of 25,125 (male- 22,401 and female-2,724) staffs are working to assist almost 6.67 million members. Up to December 2007, the cumulative disbursement is Tk. 249,809 million and the outstanding is Tk. 27,764 million with service charge.
 

ASA always tries to assist the local small and emerging NGOs so that they can play a vital role in poverty alleviation as well as can be sustainable within the shortest possible time. ASA provides these partner NGOs with skilled manpower, technical support and loan funds. Under this program, ASA has more than 30 partner NGOs all over the country.

ASA also channels soft loan funds from the donors to the local organizations. It is due to ASA's earnest efforts, CORDAID-Netherlands has been extending financial support to 12 NGOs of Bangladesh. Through this, ASA also tries to ensure its assistance to poor people of the remotest areas. All of the partners NGOs are also building their capability to get access to other commercial funds.

Project Overview

In April 2006, ASA formulated its 10-years IT Roadmap based on expert assessments, the first step of which was automating its branch operations by December 2007. With this objective, a unique world-class software called "ASA Microfinance Management System (AMMS)" was developed by an in-house professional team within twelve months.

With this software completed, pilot deployments were done in 89 ASA district offices. This pilot experience helped the IT team to deploy AMMS in more than 3,200 branches in one shot. Starting in June 2007, this deployment was successfully completed by December 2007, covering 3,192 branches just within seven months.

To support ASA's operation, AMMS is an integrated platform that contains modules for handling microfinance operations, accounts, HRM, fund planning, etc. AMMS has been developed using Net and MSSQL. In addition, JIRA, SVN, Confluence and Rational Rose also have also been used in the development life-cycle. The helpdesk uses JIRA for managing trouble tickets and details audit trails.to the local organizations. It is due to ASA's earnest efforts, CORDAID-Netherlands has been extending financial support to 12 NGOs of Bangladesh. Through this, ASA also tries to ensure its assistance to poor people of the remotest areas. All of the partners NGOs are also building their capability to get access to other commercial funds.

ASA IT Team

ASA's IT infrastructure is managed by two functional teams: development and implementation. The development team is responsible for introducing and matching ASA's business needs to software systems development, and the implementation team is responsible for delivering solutions to end-users and maintains the infrastructure.

ASA's skilled software development team includes experts on business analysis, development and quality control areas and follows industry-standard process oriented methodologies marching towards CMMI Level-3.

The helpdesk delivers solution to end-users through 170 support engineers at district offices, which includes software deployment, support for hardware and software, documentation and user-training.

 

International Coverage

ASA has been providing Technical Assistance (TA), since 1993, to the NGO/MFIs of different countries as the microfinance consultant. It has already provided NGOs/ MFIs of almost 16 countries around the globe with technical assistance for their quick and sustainable development. A considerable number of visitors and trainees also pay visit to ASA every year with a view to acquiring knowledge about implementation of the ASA model. ASA has

already provided Technical Assistance (TA) to the following countries.

Catalyst Microfinance Investors (CMI)

Catalyst Microfinance Investors (CMI) (www.catalyst-microfinance.com) has been established by ASA and Sequoia, a Dutch corporate finance and private equity firm. This is a microfinance investment fund investing in the equity of emerging NGO/MFIs in Asia and Africa. The objective is to accelerate the growth of high-potential NGO/MFIs by strengthening their capital, and providing them with the ASA expertise needed to expand and optimize their efficiency effectively.

Amongst the investors behind the CMI are wealthy individuals, other microfinance funds and institutional investors, such as banks and pension funds. So far, CMI has made investments in Cambodia and Sri Lanka and is currently investigating a large number of investment opportunities in other countries. Catalyst Microfinance Investment Company (CMIC) is the fund manager of the CMI.
 

ASA International (ASAI)

ASA International (ASAI) (www.asa-international.com) is also established to implement ASA Model in different MFIs through the CMI. ASAI

is currently establishing new MFIs in different countries: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines and Ghana. Each of these MFIs will follow the highly efficient ASA model, adjusted to local circumstances. Experienced staff from ASA has been seconded to these institutions to train the local staff and design the policies and procedures. It is foreseen that each of these MFIs will, over time, be the market leader in terms of efficiency and scale in each of the mentioned markets. This will stimulate competition in these markets and put pressure on other MFIs to reduce their operating expenses and ultimately reduce the costs of borrowing to the clients.

 

ASA Foundation International (AFI)

At present, ASA model is demanding worldwide and it seems very hard for ASA spreading the microfinance service globally sitting in Bangladesh. Huge fund is also essential for this. Considering this, ASA Foundation International has been established to provide financial and technical assistance worldwide. This will be a non-profit institution to assist the poor through assisting the institutions, which help them. Small and emerging NGO/MFIs of the world will be benefited from this. They will be provided opportunity to replicate ASA Cost-effective and Sustainable Microfinance Model besides getting financial assistance from this institution. They will get opportunity of being self-reliant within shortest possible time through replicating ASA Model. The institution will welcome fund from different sources to meet its goal successfully. The Head Office of this foundation is in New York, USA.

During January-December 2007, a number of 193 foreigners have visited ASA to know its different development programs. They were from different countries namely USA, South Africa, India, Malaysia, Philippines, etc. and different institutions namely Grameen Foundation, National Tekwn Foundation, etc.


 

The university has started its academic activities, after getting approval from the govt. of Bangladesh and the UGC, in May 21, 2007. Initially, the university has offered different programs of graduation and post graduation. The graduation (4 years) programs are English, LLB and BBA. The post graduations (2 years) are MBA (regular) and MBA (Executive). The number of student is 1,284 up to December 2007. Some new disciplines would be introduced very soon.
 

ASA is committed to play a vital role in worldwide poverty alleviation and the organization is working relentlessly to meet the goal. CMI, ASAI and AFI have been established by ASA to spread microfinance globally. Clients' friendly products are also being introduced time to time to meet multidimensional needs of the poor. On the other hand, ASA University Bangladesh has been established to make higher education available among the poor students.
 

FINANCIAL ANALYSIS OF ASA
Financial Statistics
                                                                                                         (Amount in BD Taka)

Note: 2007 figures are provisional

ASA AT A GLANCE

Up to December 2007

                                        (Amount in BD Taka)