Monday, October 27, 2014

This is how I explained "Decimal places" and "Currency in multiples of" in Mifos X loan product definition

Let me give you a brief background about this post. Mifos X is open source CBS (CORE Banking Solution) for financial inclusion. To know more about it, you have to visit http://mifos.org/

During one the pre-sales demo, I have to explain how easily an financial institute can roll out new products to their present customers and to attract new customers.

To define new products, Mifos X has option to define loan products with many configurations and two of them are "Decimal places" and "Currency in multiples of", I explained about these indicators as below




Partial screenshot of "Loan Product" definition screen


Decimal places : Precision level of the EMI amount after the decimal places (in case of EMI computed by the system )

Currency in multiples of: Precision level of the EMI amount before the decimal places (in case of EMI computed by the system )





and then conversation went like this,

Nayan: both of these configuration are mutually exclusive, meaning if you set one parameter then should NOT set other,

Client: I do not agree to this point and I should be able to configure both together, why it is not possible.

Nayan: It does not make sense.

Client:  Why it does not make sense??!!

Nayan: Let me put it in this way and then we will take the question why it does not make sense :)

I said, don't think "Decimal places" (DP) and "Currency in multiples of" (CIMO)  as two different parameters, instead think it as one parameter to indicate the precision of EMI computed by the system

CASE 1: Precision is set to 0  (is same as DP = 0 and CIMO = 0)




CASE 2: Precision is set to .01  (is same as DP = 2 and CIMO = 0)


CASE 3: Precision is set to 100  (is same as DP = 0 and CIMO = 100)