Publications – CIS Kenya

MFI Capacity Assessment

Job Mariga — Wed, 08 Jul 2020 12:25:32 +0000

CIS Kenya in determining the level of preparedness by various institutions conducted a capacity assessment on their ability to participate in the CIS mechanism. The MFI Assessment was financed by FSD Kenya which has been a keen partner to ensuring that the data submitted to the CRBs is reliable and credible in reaching credit decisions. To read the contents of the findings Read more…

Draft CIS National Policy

Job Mariga — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 07:59:34 +0000

Kenya has never had a formal CIS policy. This paper is the first attempt to do so. Thus, while this Policy Paper is mostly a response to current developments, the failure of a formal policy, from the outset, has had repercussions. For example, despite global best-practise encouraging the sharing of positive and negative data, Kenya started out sharing negative credit data only. Read more..

Interest Rate Ruling-Petition_413_of_2016-Interest Cap

Job Mariga — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 09:45:32 +0000

This is the ruling determining the constitutionality of the interest rate cap that was effected in 2016.

Download the Petition_413_of_2016-Interest Cap

Promotion of Sustainable Finance

admin — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 19:08:30 +0000

Any person with a conservative perspective of CIS Kenya’s mandate would be forgiven for asking the question: How does CIS Kenya harmonize its traditional role of developing a credit information sharing system with its new leadership role of promoting Sustainable Finance among non-banking institutions in Kenya? The answer lies in the recognition that our membership requires a more comprehensive view of the risks that confront them.

There is no doubt that information asymmetry threatens the quality of the loan book. The solutions that credit bureaus offer by providing credit bureau reports, scores and other products are largely used to mitigate the economic risks of the business. However, it has become increasingly clear that our membership must consider the long term effects of the depletion of natural resources and climate change. We set out to complement our CIS value proposition with a conversation on the urgent need for our members to engage with the sustainability issues that call for balancing environmental, social and economic factors of their business.

We identified World Wide Fund for Nature Kenya (WWF) as a partner in this journey. We settled on the local Development Finance Institutions operating in Kenya as our first sector of focus and who quite fortunately, are part of the CIS Kenya membership. This WWF-CIS Kenya partnership is intended to encourage non-bank financial institutions to re-examine indirect and direct risks that arise from environmental and social (E&S) issues

We are of the view that time has come for member institutions to draw from the opportunities that arise from sounder loan portfolio thanks to adequate E&S risk identification and management. Working with a committee that was established from among local DFIs, we have defined the sustainability agenda for this category of members drawn from the convergence that exists between AADFI Standards, CIS best practices and Sustainability factors. Having mapped out the common areas of concern, we proceeded to develop a Self-Diagnostic Tool (SDT) that will help our members undertake a self-assessment of the gaps that exist in their risk management frameworks. The next step will be to develop a Customer Assessment Tool (CAT) on Sustainable Finance Compliance.

PROMOTION OF SUSTAINABLE FINANCE For print final

Developing CIS Platforms for Derisking Lending to Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa

admin — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 19:07:48 +0000

This paper makes the case for agricultural lenders in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to upgrade the sources of information collateral by placing more reliance on credit bureaus than less sophisticated structures such as group-based savings and lending techniques. Properly licensed and regulated credit bureaus, having access to a wide range of formal and informal, positive and negative data, are a more efficient and effective means for character-based lending to mitigate risk, reduce operating costs and enforce repayment…Read on.

Developing CIS platforms for derisking lending to Agriculture in Subsaharan Africa.pdf

CIS Toolkit: Credit Information Sharing in Kenya: A Case Study

admin — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 19:07:06 +0000

The experience of Credit Information Sharing (“CIS”) in Kenya is a case study in market and stakeholder coordination in order to build a robust financial infrastructure. Kenya’s experience, until 2008 was much like many other countries: a story of fits and starts with limited progress and effectiveness. In 2008, a number of stakeholders including donors, industry associations, regulators and financial institutions began working together to solve an intractable problem: how to create an effective CIS market. The Kenyan experience is best captured and distilled in three separate stand-alone documents, each serving a different purpose.

This document (CIS Toolkit – Case Study) tells the story of what happened and what lessons were learned along the way. It is particularly useful to practitioners seeking to create CIS in other markets and wish to understand how to best catalyse change.

CIS Toolkit – Case Study .docx

CIS Toolkit: Credit Providers Step by Step Guide

admin — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 19:06:24 +0000

This second document (CIS Toolkit – Step-By-Step Guide) is useful for those who want to dig deeper, for a high-level guide on how to replicate Kenya’s experience in a different country. The high-level guide takes the insights from the case study and converts them to actionable steps that regulators, donors and financial institutions in other markets can follow to achieve similar results. Naturally, each country is different and there will be invariable differences. Still, the general principles captured in the high-level guide serve as important sign posts to follow to maximise the odds of success.

CIS Toolkit – Credit Providers Step-by-Step Guide .doc

CIS Toolkit: A High Level Toolkit for Practitioners

admin — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 19:05:47 +0000

This third document (CIS Toolkit – High-level Toolkit for Practitioners) seeks to ensure that the ultimate success metric is achieved: participation in CIS by all financial institutions. It is a step-by-step guide for credit providers on how to go about preparing to join the CIS mechanism. Although mainly created for credit providers, it is equally useful to donors and regulators who need to understand the key issues credit providers grapple with and areas in which either technical assistance or regulatory intervention can be most effective.

CIS Toolkit – High-level Guide.docx

Current and Prospective Effectiveness of CIS

admin — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 19:05:07 +0000

This report was commissoned by CIS Kenya and FSD Kenya to understand the current perceptions of market participants regarding the usage of the CIS mechanism, its impact on the market and remaining constraints to the development of an effective credit sharing mechanism in Kenya.

CIS Effectiveness

Training Report – Credit Bureau Reports and Scoring

admin — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 19:04:28 +0000

This brief constitutes a report on the above training conducted on 12th May 2016 by CIS Kenya for its members. This initiative was intended to expose credit officers to credit scoring development and intepretation. CIS Kenya intends to make training a core activity and therefore this one-day training served as a pilot to inform future training undertakings. The training was attended by 42 delegates from commercial banks, credit reference bureaus, development finance institutions, microfinance institutions, saccos and state lenders.

Credit Bureau Reports and Scoring report