Miriam LalsoraniChief Information Officer · Essays & perspective
Field notes / Miriam Lalsorani
Chief Information Officer · India
Dispatch 01 / India
Offline applications and receipt identity6 min read
Clarity must travel beyond the connection
An interrupted connection creates uncertainty about a message. It should not silently create a second financial event or transfer the investigation to the borrower.
A travelling device should carry the records needed for its assigned work. Remote management cannot compensate for an unnecessarily broad download or prove containment while a handset remains offline.
03
Language testing in financial field applications6 min read
A linguistically acceptable phrase can still lead an officer to the wrong next step. Task observation brings language, workflow and customer consequences into the same release decision.
A leadership conviction
I grew up in Aizawl and began my working life helping people use software outside a central office. A system that makes sense only beside its designer is unfinished. I want the field officer to know what the device has recorded, what still awaits confirmation and what must be explained to the customer. That clarity matters as much on a weak connection as it does in the boardroom where we decide what to fund.
Branches supported
88
Four northeastern Indian states; March 2026
Technology colleagues
42
Led through four functional heads
Technology envelope
₹28 Cr
₹22 crore operating plus ₹6 crore capital expenditure
I build technology for a regional lender by testing whether people can use it responsibly beyond the conditions of a head-office demonstration.
I am CIO of Zeravien Rural Finance in Guwahati. Our 88 branches serve low-income households across Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura. I lead 42 technology colleagues through four functional heads, working with separately accountable credit, operations, finance and compliance teams. The company's March 2026 loan portfolio of ₹1,380 crore describes the business we support, not my lending authority. My approved technology envelope is ₹28 crore, split between operating and capital expenditure.
My first job was supporting software used in district public-service offices. I learnt how power interruptions, shared equipment and unfamiliar wording can change a system's usefulness. I moved from support to implementation, then joined Zeravien in 2010 to manage applications. Technology operations and the CIO appointment followed. The question I carry through that career is whether the person furthest from the project team can distinguish a completed action from one still waiting for confirmation.
The work here includes a payment-receipt upload problem, smaller borrower-data downloads, field testing of translated prompts and a staged handset replacement. These are decisions about the conditions in which people actually work. They involve unresolved records, inconvenience and expenditure as well as improvements. I want a reader to see why we made each choice and which judgement remained with a colleague outside technology.
A retry is not another payment
A review of 18,420 field receipt records found 1,146 repeated transmissions following connection interruptions. We retained the original receipt identity and stopped retries from becoming new posting requests. Thirty-seven records still needed reconciliation at the review date; I did not describe them as proven duplicate collections or resolved customer accounts.
Less borrower data travels with the officer
After six field devices were reported lost, we replaced a download of up to 720 borrower records with a daily assigned route containing at most 42. We removed identity-document images from that local route package. The change reduced exposure but did not make an offline remote-wipe command effective before the device reconnected.
A translation must survive use
Forty-four officers tried 23 revised prompts across 128 simulated tasks. Incorrect next actions fell from seventeen in the first round to four in the second. We released nineteen prompts and held four for further work, preserving the approved lending terms while changing how staff navigated the application.
Current focus
I am developing a field-technology review in which operations, language reviewers and security colleagues examine the same task from different perspectives. I also want clearer evidence of handset support life before procurement treats an available device as a usable addition to the fleet.
Conversations I welcome
I can consider a first board role in a regional service business that depends on staff working beyond reliable office connectivity. I have provisionally reserved eighteen days annually, subject to employer consent, conflicts and the actual committee workload. I would contribute technology judgement without presenting myself as a lending or legal specialist.
Beyond the page
The record behind the perspective.
Formation
Bachelor of Science in Computer ScienceEhnawel Science College · 1998
Miriam made us test what an officer would do after a connection failed, not just whether the application could reconnect. Working with her since 2017, I have found that she takes the practical inconvenience seriously without using it to excuse an unclear customer record.
Anup VerthaniCOO, Zeravien Rural Finance; operating colleague since 2017The full record ↗
Contact
I can consider a first board role in a regional service business that depends on staff working beyond reliable office connectivity. I have provisionally reserved eighteen days annually, subject to employer consent, conflicts and the actual committee workload. I would contribute technology judgement without presenting myself as a lending or legal specialist.
