Development Best Practices in Credit Union Supervision: Management Information System Standards for Credit Unions

This paper recommends requirements and standards for a Management Information System (MIS) to be used by a credit union. It classifies the MIS features into absolutely necessary, recommended and advanced features. The features relate to:

• Functionality or ability to meet organizational requirements such as:
  • Basic accounting,
  • Appropriate loan and deposit monitoring functions,
  • Client information management.
• Expandability or scalability of the structure to support credit union growth;
• Flexibility or the ability to support:
  • Diverse products, customer needs and operating models,
  • Multiple offices at various levels.
• Usability in terms of:
  • A user friendly interface,
  • Easy, effective and error-free task performance,
  • Ease in installation and maintenance.
• Reporting requirements such as:
  • Adequacy, accuracy and usability of reports,
  • Validation of the report generation process,
  • Possibility to create user definable reports.
• Standards and compliance requirements such as:
  • Sound and consistent adherence of accounting to general standards,
  • Compliance to applicable local regulations,
  • Ease in future adjustments for compliance.
• Administration and support requirements such as:
  • System security,
  • Data back up and recovery features,
  • Robustness and fault tolerance,
  • Vendor support and strategy for maintenance and upgradation.
• Technical specifications such as:
  • Programs and programming language of the software,
  • Network and hardware type,
  • System speed and storage.
• Pricing and costs requirements such as availability of all cost information and adequacy of price in relation to functionality.