Star developer Sanjay Ramanathan from Accenture assists Good Return to build skills in Asia

Sanjay Ramanathan from Accenture has been a friend of Good Return for a number of years. Sanjay was responsible for developing Good Return’s first 'My Money Tracker' application - a mobile app that assists Cambodian micro-entrepeneurs to track their money and build their personal or business savings.

Designed in both Cambodian Khmer and English, the My Money Tracker app was the first money tracking Android app designed specifically for Cambodians. Informed by a deep understanding of Cambodian micro-business owners’ needs and situations, the app aims to be user-friendly and helps keep track of their money habits within their daily routines. 30,968 people were regular users of the My Money Tracker app in FY22.

Following the success of the Cambodian My Money Tracker app, we are thrilled that Sanjay is now back to help Good Return by expanding the 'My Money Tracker' project to the Philippines!

"I have been in the IT industry for 12 years, and discovered a real love of mobile app design. When I joined Accenture, I was given the opportunity to join their Liquid Studio innovation lab. I first connected to Good Return when the lab took on the Cambodian My Money Tracker app as a project’’ explained Sanjay. 

“I think mobile apps offer many benefits over websites, as they can be more intuitive, personalised, and feature more animations and customised design. In places like Cambodia and Philippines, where people are using cheaper phones and are sometimes still on a 2G network, apps can be much more accessible. An app can also save data online which is very important in data-poor countries”. 

Sanjay also explained that it is crucial that the applications design must take into account the fact that every country has its own way of handling money in order to be successfully downloaded and used by the communities for whom it was designed. In Cambodia there can be low trust of banks or formal financial institutions. This means that often people have physical stashes of money in their home, divided into amounts to be used for their household, business and other expenses. Moreover, instead of loans or formal banking, many people operate on credit - so a baker might buy his flour on credit and then repay it from profit. The original My Money Tracker App was designed specifically to monitor such activities. 

Aware that Good Return’s products and programs, such as the My Money Tracker app, must be adapted to the unique cultural ecosystems of each diverse community we work with has meant that the planning for the new app in the new Filipino context has required long-term vision and diligent research by Sanjay and the Good Return team, including Melodie Buendia and Meldy Pelejo. In the research and planning phase, it was found that Filipino people also keep cash at home but they supplement that cash with MFI loans and also use piggy banks called Alkansiya. Accordingly, the new app has been designed to assist Filipino communities keep track of their money, whether it is in cash or in an account, providing an up-to-date summary every day. The new app has also been designed for people with low financial literacy in this specific context: making sure the user has to make no more than three clicks to upload a transaction. Finally, the visual language has also been modified for the Filipino context - for example the transport icon of a tuk tuk has been transformed into a public utility jeepney for the Filipino My Money Tracker app!

Thank you to Sanjay and Accenture for their incredible support of our work - and we will announce the launch of My Money Tracker in the Philippines very soon. We thank Good Return's Melodie Buendia and Meldy Pelejo for their work on contextualisation especially with the primary and secondary categories used in the application. Our thanks also go to St. Elizabeth Community Development Program (SECDEP), Good Return's microfinance institution partner where the app is undergoing testing, and to Ahon sa Hirap, Inc. and Alalay sa Kaunlaran, Inc. for their inputs into the Philippine version of the My Money Tracker.

Good Return's My Money Tracker and CAFE Initiative are delivered in partnership with the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP) and with support from the Accenture Australia Foundation. #ANCP