Mirrors in Kenya

Kenya - microcredit the African way Sergey Sheikhetov, Head of Qualitative Research for Sub Saharan Africa at Kantar, on the specifics of the rapid development of microcredit in Africa, contributing to revolutionary economic and social changes in the region. Microcredit is helping the poorest people out of poverty, and microcredit organizations are becoming serious players in the financial market and are beginning to threaten the existence of traditional local banks. Interestingly, despite the similarity of microcredit business models in Russia and in African countries, the results of their implementation differ greatly. What are these differences? B8. The difference lies primarily in the approaches to microcrediting of the consumers themselves. In Russia, easy access to microcredit provokes certain groups of people to spend as much as possible, to buy goods and services they do not really need, which ultimately only increases their poverty. In Africa, most  Mirrors in Kenya microcredit is invested in business (of course, also microscopic in scale), which allows borrowers to create a source of income and ultimately contributes to poverty reduction, and simply gives many a unique chance to get out of poverty. Let's consider how the microcredit industry works, using the example of Kenya, an African country that in recent years has been ahead of many not only developing, but even developed countries in terms of the development of innovative financial services. There are more than 10 microcredit providers successfully operating in Kenya, both Kenyan (M-Shwari) and foreign (Tala). There is even one provider from Russia (AfrikaLoan). All Kenyan MFIs operate through mobile applications - and this is one of the main reasons for the explosive growth of the industry. The consumer simply needs to download the application through the App Store, fill out an application, and, as the advertisement promises, after “half an hour” (in reality, of course, a little longer), he can receive a loan to his mobile money account (all adults have a mobile M-Pesa account). residents of Kenya). Thus, in order to receive a microloan, residents of Kenya simply need to have a mobile phone, without bothering to go to the lender's office, fill out questionnaires and lengthy negotiations. The vast majority of Kenyan borrowers are extremely scrupulous about their debts 8C. 8B. A few words should be said here about the target audience of Kenyan, and indeed almost all other African MFIs. For the most part, these are very poor people, whose earnings do not exceed the equivalent of 2 US dollars a day. They do not have permanent jobs and live in rural areas. Of course, traditional banks are not interested in such clients. Despite extreme poverty, these people cannot be called beggars. According to African notions, a beggar is a person who has finally lost faith in life, has fallen, “lost his face”. Such people are also found among MFI clients, but providers quite successfully weed them out. The vast majority of the poor seek to get out of poverty. Kenya is a country of businessmen. If you ask a Kenyan what he does, the most common response is: "I'm a businessman." Here are examples of typical African micro businesses: B4! The peculiarity of such microscopic enterprises is that they are extremely vulnerable. The client did not pay on time, and a huge hole formed in the cash capital. And even though this gap is only $20, it must be filled immediately, otherwise the whole enterprise is over. And you can immediately get $20 only at MFIs. https://jiji.co.ke/53-mirrors