a phased introduction. The company at this point would no longer be the main sponsor of the platform but would be a developer, alongside others. It was expected that existing customers would be migrated to open source during 2013 and would effectively become the early adopters, said Enache. The legal aspects would be finalised. Allevo’s software development director, Horia Beschea, said the company was assessing open source database, PostgreSQL, as an option, but banks would still be able to use others, such as Oracle, although they would need to license these. Meanwhile, the separate search for international takers
continued. By October 2012, Allevo had signed a partner for Portugal and Portuguese-speaking Africa, Descontel. However, international expansion was clearly proving tough. The aim of the open source plans was to ‘achieve a larger footprint in the market’, said Enache. Aided by funding from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development within its Enterprise Growth Programme, Allevo moved forwards with its open source plans, culminating in an official launch in January 2014 at an event in Bucharest of the open source version of its platform, dubbed FinTP, and the community for this, FINkers United. The aim is still to move all customers to this version but, for the next couple of years at least, the company will continue to offer
Uptake and customer experiences
The largest users are Raiffeisen and Erste Group in Romania, plus the country’s Ministry of Public Finance, which has large volumes of collections and payments via qPayIntegrator. Allevo’s first western European customer was a somewhat niche entity that signed in 2010. This is Musoni, a Nairobi- based microfinance organisation with a Dutch holding company parent. It went live with qPayIntegrator in the second half of the year. This was to support mobile payments for the repayment of loans and deposits, complementing current person-to-person mobile payment services. Using Safaricom’s M-Pesa or Zain’s Zap mobile money transfer services, customers send payments and instructions to a Musoni account, receiving back an SMS confirmation. Musoni handles the onward disbursement. Microsoft worked on the project.
The connection with BIS/Allevo came via a Dutch consultant, said the supplier’s deputy sales manager, Alina Chira. It was a significant step for the Romanian company as it sought to move beyond its domestic base. The decision by Musoni to set up its infrastructure in the Netherlands was said to be a reflection of the fact that many MFIs struggle with the maintenance and handling of their MIS. It stated: ‘We have taken the decision to base our back office operations in Holland, where the necessary expertise is more readily available than in the countries where we operate. This will also allow us, in the future, to move swiftly and efficiently into
the licence version as well. The APIs, base engine and some functionality, such as
the connectivity part for Swift and the Romanian RTGS, had been published by the time of the launch, with the rest of the functionality due to be available by the end of 2015. It will support open source databases, as well as Oracle, and the code is hosted on an open source portal. There was early activity in terms of downloading the code, said Beschea, who was now CTO. This was from customers as well as a couple of universities (in Romania and northern Italy) and there were discussions with some vendors about doing the same. Allevo is also looking to partner with other vendors, in areas such as security, testing, benchmarking and distribution. In November 2017, Allevo launched FinTP Connect, a
software application for the centralised management of requests from TPPs (PISP/AISP) on behalf of the final customer. The solution, launched on the back of the implementation of the revised PSD2, aims to increase transparency in the financial market, as well as the security level for online payments and for accessing accounts and information. PISPs will be able to initiate payments to an online merchant directly from the payer’s account, while AISPs will be able to retrieve information on the customers’ accounts, including the balance and transaction history.
new countries.’ Musoni was intending to expand initially into Tanzania and Uganda and ultimately into any country with sufficient mobile banking infrastructure. The Dutch holding company takes care of fundraising. Musoni still relies on the group-lending methodology backed up by branch managers and loan officers. However, as the first MFI in the world to be 100 per cent mobile, it claims improved efficiency and savings, for both itself and its clients. By late 2012, Musoni was apparently planning to extend its use of Allevo’s system to Uganda. This had still not happened by Q1 2014 but Musoni had taken a new multi-entity and multi- country version of the system with such an expansion in mind. By this stage, qIntegrator was live at a second western
European customer, Amsterdam Trade Bank. The contract was signed on 31st October 2013 after a proof of concept study and the bank was live for SEPA Credit Transfers by the end of December. A subsidiary of Russia’s Alfa Bank, it is a long-standing user of Misys’ Equation, with this feeding the Allevo system. Some minor changes were needed for the bank related to EBA clearing, said Sorina Bera, Allevo’s head of professional services.
In late 2015, Eximbank (the Export-Import Bank of Romania) opted for the domestic software provider’s open source application, FinTP. Allevo ensured that FinTP allows full control over the source code of the application, thus eliminating any vendor lock-in dependence; and offers access to a transparent product development process and transparent product audit.
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