Managing Microfinance with Paper, Pen and Digital Slate
This paper presents a digital slate solution to manage the financial records of Indian self-help groups (SHGs).
India’s extensive SHG network brings formal savings and credit services to 86 million poor households. A persistent weakness in SHG functioning, however, is their inability to maintain high-quality records. The study examines this problem and presents a financial record management application built on a low-cost digital slate prototype. The application directly accepts handwritten input on ordinary paper forms and provides immediate electronic feedback. A field trial with 200 SHG members in rural India shows that the digital slate solution:
- Results in shorter data recording time, fewer incorrect entries and more complete records;
- Performs as well as a purely electronic alternative;
- Comfortably moves between paper and digital worlds;
- Achieves efficiency and quality gains;
- Caters to the preferences and budgets of low-income, illiterate clients.
The study found that members gave great importance to the instant, automated audio feedback on dues and balances generated by the application. They preferred the hybrid pen-paper-slate solution over the purely electronic control, because it gave them a paper record of their data that they could access at any time.
