Powered by Mifos – Advancly
This regular blog series will showcase partners and the innovative solutions they’ve built that are powered by the Apache Fineract and Mifos X platforms. These case studies will demonstrate your solution to end users who are seeking to use them as well as show other partners in the community how they too can leverage the Apache Fineract platform to build their own solutions powered by an open source core banking infrastructure.
Advancly: Powering Progress
According to the World Bank, formal MSMEs in sub-Saharan Africa face a huge finance gap of $331 billion (USD). This is largely because they are unable to provide key information about their businesses to traditional/corporate lenders. But financing is key to the survival of these businesses who, beyond accounting for 60% of jobs in Africa, are representative of the dreams and aspirations of entrepreneurs and many times key to the survival of them and their families.
For the most part, MSME financial requirements are too large for microfinance banks but too small to be effectively served by corporate bank models. This leaves a “missing middle” in the need of the right financing options, with financial need that stands at over 1.6 trillion USD (formal and informal SMEs).
Advancly exists to bridge the lending gap for the missing middle. We provide businesses across Africa and emerging markets with debt capital and embedded finance services, enabling them to utilise credit to grow and scale. Through technology, we harness data that provides a backdrop for intelligent and automated credit risk assessment. By adopting machine learning and artificial intelligence that allows for a robust credit-scoring, we work to ensure that our non-performing loans remain lower than industry realities.
Overview of the Team/Company
Advancly is powered by a team of analytic, strategic and creative thinkers who work daily to build human-centred credit solutions. We are enabling entrepreneurs and founders to succeed at building their economies by building their dreams.
Our ethos is backed by our belief that, when businesses progress, society progresses. For us, progress simply means “better”. It is the daily efforts put in to create a positively different reality. It is when a business can serve one more customer and sell one more product. It is when an entrepreneur moves one step closer to building the business of their dreams.
CEO Profile
Lotanna Julian is the CEO and co-founder of Advancly. With an astute background in finance, strategy, operations and investment portfolio management, Lotanna leads Advancly’s skilled team in their mission to Power Progress for MSME’s across Africa and emerging markets by innovating access to credit through capital, data and technology.
Lotanna has a vast experience in global business operations and investment portfolio management, which have proven invaluable in the Advancly journey and grown the company in record time. Lotanna and the Advancly team are looking to take the business to 10 countries by 2026 – with the goal of injecting $500m into MSMEs across Africa and emerging markets.
Reach/Impact of our Solution
Over the last 3 years, Advancly has injected over $80m in credit-for-scale into MSMEs across 6 African countries including Nigeria and Kenya. In 2022, Advancly doubled its loan book size, disbursing over $33m in loans to 40 aggregator partners with over 50,000 touch points across the continent.
Features of Advancly
Advancly Spark
Advancly Spark is built for future-thinking entrepreneurs who are looking to start or grow and scale on their own terms. Via a simple integration to Advancly’s systems, these entrepreneurs can unlock growth in the form of credit, without having to dilute the ownership of their companies via a simple integration to our systems. Advancly Spark enables businesses to extend their credit portfolio in a modular way and access credit when they need it. With this access, they can increase their working capital, close liquidity gaps and cover invoice, payroll, inventory and purchase order financing with ease.
Advancly Embed
Advancly Embed enables businesses to earn while enabling their ecosystem to access, grow and utilise money on their own environments. Empowered by Advancly’s API, data and capital, businesses can become the bridge to progress for their ecosystem by extending loans, investment and other financial services to their customers, staff, vendors, investors, and other partners. With Advancly Embed, businesses can focus on their core while deepening their value propositions and unlocking new revenue lines. They can grow as their ecosystem grows.
Advest
Advancly is innovating access to money for credit-worthy businesses, who have proven to have a great track record, and a vision for growth worth supporting. We empower them to scale forward by investing in their dreams and, when they grow, we grow. We invite investors to join us on this journey through Advest. Advest is built to enable investors to build wealth by closing liquidity gaps in the fastest- growing business sectors in Africa and emerging markets. With Advest, our investors can grow money safely and in diverse currencies. They can earn up to 18% ROI and see the real-time impact they are making on people and businesses across the continent.
How is Advancly Powered by Mifos?
At Advancly, we believe that society can only progress when people and businesses (MSMEs) progress. We are enabling this progress through technology and Mifos powers our solutions as the core banking for our financial products. Using Mifos REST APIs, we are able to extend loans, fixed deposit and savings features to our customers.
What were the benefits of using the Mifos/Fineract Platform or working with an Open Source Community?
The Mifos system is robust and affordable. It enables us to make valuable contributions to the development of the product and leverage on expertise from across the globe. By utilising Mifos, we were able to save 1 year off building on top of an OS platform, and can now build and deliver our solutions with greater speed. 
“At Advancly, we are committed to being an organisation that does well by doing good. This means that our operations – our solutions, partnerships and processes – are guided strongly by human-centred principles. We have partnered with Mifos as our core-banking-for-progress partner because we have a shared mission to enable financial empowerment and deliver responsible financial services to people across the world. This partnership has been immensely beneficial to us and we are proud to be Powered by Mifos.”
Relevant Links
Website: http://www.advancly.com
