The short answer
The Growth Informer Loan and SACCO Management System is the loan, savings, shares and member system we configure and build for each money lender, SACCO and microfinance institution in Uganda. It is not a download or a shared login. We set it up around your own loan products: reducing balance schedules (and flat ones where your rules allow), savings and share accounts, member and borrower records, MTN MoMo and Airtel Money disbursement and collection, arrears and portfolio at risk reports, SMS reminders, staff roles with an audit trail, and member access on everyday Android phones.
You get a fixed quote before any work starts, you pay on a 50/25/25 plan, and you own the source code and your data. The first step is a scoping call on WhatsApp on +256 702 946 946, where we ask three things: which loan products you run, how many members or active loans you carry, and how you disburse and collect money today.
What the system does, module by module
Loan products and repayment schedules
Each product carries its own rules: minimum and maximum amount, term, repayment frequency, monthly interest rate, interest method, processing fees, late charges, grace period, and the guarantors or collateral you require. Change a rate and new loans pick it up, while running loans keep the terms they were signed on. For a licensed money lender two rules shape every product: Regulation 21 of the Money Lenders Regulations, 2018 requires interest to be computed on the monthly outstanding balance of the principal, and Legal Notice No. 21 of 2024 caps money lender interest at 2.8% a month. So we set those products to reducing balance and block any rate above a ceiling you control, which you can change if the law changes.
Illustration only, a borrower's loan and not our price: UGX 2,000,000 over six months at 2.5% a month. Worked flat, the interest is UGX 300,000. Worked on the reducing balance, the instalment is about UGX 363,100 and total interest about UGX 178,600, with month one carrying UGX 50,000 of interest and month six under UGX 9,000. The system prints the schedule line by line, so nobody argues about the numbers at the counter.
Savings, shares and member records
One record per member or borrower holds identity details, next of kin, guarantor links, savings deposits and withdrawals, share capital and full loan history. If your SACCO lends as a multiple of savings, the system checks that limit before a loan reaches approval, and a guarantor's pledged savings can be held so they are not withdrawn while the loan runs. Any member can get a statement on request.
MTN MoMo and Airtel Money
Approved loans go out to the borrower's registered number, and repayments and savings deposits come back through Mobile Money and are matched to the right account. Cash and bank payments at the office are still receipted, so the books show every shilling whichever way it moved. The Mobile Money business accounts are opened in your institution's name with each network, so collections land in your accounts, not ours.
Arrears, portfolio at risk and SMS reminders
Every morning the system lists overdue loans by loan officer, with days late, amount due and the borrower's phone number, and sends SMS reminders before a due date and after a missed one. Portfolio at risk is reported at the day bands you track, such as PAR 1, PAR 30 and PAR 90, by branch, officer and product.
Roles, approvals and audit trail
A loan officer captures, a manager approves within set limits, a cashier disburses, and nobody approves their own application. Posted transactions are corrected with reversals, never silent edits, and every action is logged with the user and the time.
Member access on Android phones
Members check balances, schedules and statements, and apply for loans, from an ordinary Android phone. If that access is a Google Play app, Google's Personal Loans policy applies: it does not allow apps that promote personal loans requiring full repayment in 60 days or less, and it bars lending apps from permissions such as reading contacts and photos. A lender whose main product is a 30 day loan is usually better served by member access that runs in the phone's browser, and we settle that on the scoping call.
If you only lend and take no deposits, our page on loan management systems for Ugandan money lenders covers that setup in depth. If savings and shares come first, read about our SACCO management system in Uganda.
How a loan moves through it, from application to closure
- Application: captured by a loan officer, or submitted by a member from their phone, with guarantors and collateral noted.
- Appraisal: the officer sees savings, existing loans and past repayment behaviour on one screen, which is the creditworthiness check Regulation 17 of the Money Lenders Regulations, 2018 expects before money is advanced.
- Approval: routed to the right person based on the amount and the limits you set for each role.
- Disbursement: the fees and charges are shown to the borrower before signing, then the loan goes out on MTN MoMo or Airtel Money, or is recorded as cash or bank, with fees deducted upfront or added to the schedule as the product says.
- Repayment: each payment is matched to the loan and split across late charges, interest and principal in the order your policy sets.
- Arrears: a missed instalment shows on the arrears list the next morning, the borrower gets an SMS, and portfolio at risk updates.
- Closure: the loan closes with a final statement, and the history stays on the member's record for the next application.
Underneath, every disbursement, repayment, deposit and fee posts as balanced debit and credit entries. That is the same double-entry principle behind the ledger in Moyo Pay, our own dual-currency wallet, and it is what lets your trial balance agree with your loan book at month end.
Portfolio at risk counts the whole outstanding balance of a late loan, not just the missed instalment. As an example, if UGX 80,000,000 is outstanding across your book and loans with UGX 6,000,000 still owing are more than 30 days late, your PAR 30 is 7.5%, even if the missed instalments themselves add up to far less. Many microfinance definitions also count restructured loans, and the report can include them. Test your own figures with our loan portfolio calculator.
What a loan and SACCO system costs
The price depends on how many loan products you run, whether you take savings and shares, how many branches and staff roles you need, whether members get phone access, and how much history we move across from Excel or an old system. After scoping you get one fixed quote, and it does not change unless you change the scope.
| Build | Starting price | What it usually covers |
|---|---|---|
| SACCO: savings, shares and member loans | Member register, savings and share accounts, loans linked to savings and guarantors, member statements, MTN MoMo and Airtel Money deposits and repayments, arrears and PAR reports, SMS reminders, roles and audit trail | |
| Money lender: loans without deposits | Reducing balance loan products under a rate ceiling you set, collateral and guarantor registers, fee disclosure, MTN MoMo and Airtel Money disbursement and collection, a daily arrears list by officer, PAR reports, SMS reminders, roles and audit trail | |
| Microfinance or SACCO with several branches | Branch reporting and approval limits, member Android access and migration of existing records, quoted on your branch count and the state of your data |
You pay on a 50/25/25 plan, so half the fee is paid only as the build moves forward. SMS bundles, hosting and Mobile Money transaction charges are paid to those providers and sit outside the build price. Institutions weighing a system against their current setup can also read our overview of microfinance software in Uganda.
Why trust us with your loan book, and what we will not claim
Growth Informer Software Services is based in Kampala, with 37 live website and app builds in our portfolio. The fintech work we can point to is our own: Moyo Pay, a dual-currency wallet on a double-entry ledger with Mobile Money and USSD; Growth Informer Business, our live cloud POS, inventory and business platform; and Karibu, a travel SaaS. Ledgers that must balance, Mobile Money flows and multi-user cloud systems are work we already do.
We will be plain with you. There are no lending case studies, lender testimonials or loan book figures on this page because we do not have them to show yet, and we will not pass off screenshots of someone else's system as ours. Because each build is configured for one lender, your proof comes before you pay: a written specification that sets out every product rule, report and role, and a fixed quote you can check line by line.
The law stays your responsibility. UMRA licenses and supervises SACCOs and money lenders under the Tier 4 Microfinance Institutions and Money Lenders Act, 2016. A money lender must keep a cash book, ledger, register of securities and register of debtors, retain lending records for ten years and produce them when UMRA asks, and give a borrower who asks in writing the outstanding principal, the interest payable and every payment received with its date. Anyone processing members' personal data must also register with the Personal Data Protection Office under the Data Protection and Privacy Act, 2019. The system keeps those records and produces those statements, but it carries no regulatory approval and software alone does not make an institution compliant, so confirm your own obligations with UMRA or an advocate.
When you should not build a custom system
- You are still testing lending with one product and a handful of borrowers. A well-kept spreadsheet will do until the model proves itself.
- You need to go live this week. An off-the-shelf subscription gets you running faster than any build.
- Your loan policy is not settled. Software encodes whatever rules you give it, so agree rates, late charges, guarantor rules and approval limits first.
- You cannot budget for running costs such as hosting, SMS and support after handover.
Custom starts to pay when you run several products, tie loans to savings, spend staff hours matching Mobile Money statements to borrowers by hand, or pay subscription fees that climb with every member you add. Ownership also matters over time: a money lender must keep lending records for ten years, and records in a database you own do not vanish when a subscription lapses or a vendor closes.
How to start: a scoping call on WhatsApp
Message us on WhatsApp on +256 702 946 946 and send three details:
- Your loan products: names, amount ranges, terms, monthly rates, fees, and whether each is flat or reducing balance.
- Your size: number of members or active loans, branches, and staff who will log in.
- How money moves today: cash at the office, bank, MTN MoMo or Airtel Money, and whether records live in exercise books, Excel or an old system.
We reply with follow-up questions, agree the scope with you, then send a written specification and a fixed quote. The specification works through the rules and schedule of your own products, so you can check the numbers before a line of code is written. If you want existing records moved across, a sample with member names and phone numbers removed is enough for us to judge how much cleaning the migration needs.
Frequently asked questions
How much does the Growth Informer Loan and SACCO Management System cost?
A SACCO build with savings and shares starts , and a money lending build starts . You get one fixed quote after the scoping call, before any work starts, paid on a 50/25/25 plan. Mobile Money charges, SMS and hosting are paid to those providers.
Is this off-the-shelf SACCO software I can download today?
No. It is the loan, savings, shares and member system we configure and build for each lender, around your own products, fees, late charges and approval limits. If you need to go live this week, an off-the-shelf subscription is the faster choice.
Does it work with MTN MoMo and Airtel Money?
Both are part of the build scope: disbursement and collection through each network, with every payment matched to a member and loan account. The Mobile Money business accounts and API access are opened in your institution's name with each network, and we connect the system once they are active.
Can one system handle flat rate and reducing balance loans?
Each product carries its own interest method, but the law narrows the choice for money lenders. Regulation 21 of the Money Lenders Regulations, 2018 requires a licensed money lender to compute interest on the monthly outstanding principal, and Legal Notice No. 21 of 2024 caps money lender interest at 2.8% a month, so we set those products to reducing balance under a rate ceiling you control. A SACCO product follows its by-laws and the rules UMRA applies to SACCOs, and a flat rate product can run beside a reducing balance one where those allow it.
Who owns the system and the member data?
You do. The source code and all member, loan and savings data belong to your institution, so you are never locked in to us to reach your own records.