A realistic solution to the interest rate dilemma
Submitted by Everlyne on August 11, 2016 – 9:23am The decision by the National Assembly to pass the Banking (Amendment) Bill, 2015 has triggered intense debate on the anticipated consequences of controlling the pricing of loans by commercial banks in Kenya. If approved by the President in the form presented to him, the new law will cap lending rates at four percent above the Central Bank Rate (CBR) and set minimum interest rate for deposits in interest-earning accounts at 70 percent of the CBR. The raging debate has generally pitted us into two opposing sides, one holding the populist view that Kenyans …
Parliamentary Petition to Disband the CRB Mechanism is Retrogressive
A number of concerns have arisen about credit information sharing (CIS). Many of these are indeed myths about credit reference bureaus. John Lenon once said, ‘’ I believe in everything until it is disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind.’’ The first myth arises from the concept called blacklisting. We have heard it from many quarters, including the petitioner who has approached Parliament asking for disbanding of CRBs on account of the blacklisting of borrowers. This is retrogressive, and as we shall demonstrate below, blacklisting of consumers does not actually exist …
“Co-Ownership” of Mobile Money Data: Building a Kenyan credit bureau for the digital age
By Rafe Mazer and Kate McKee, CGAP (www.cgap.org) for CIS Kenya Who owns the data generated by mobile money customers’ transactions? In January, 2016, Safaricom announced a new way for consumers to access statements for their mobile money accounts. With a simple enrollment via short code, you can now receive a detailed statement of all your M-Pesa activity each month or request a statement for the past 6 months. The benefits to customers of this new feature extend beyond its ease of use when compared to the Self-Care option at Safaricom.co.ke. Betty Mwangi, Director – Financial Services, Safaricom, described what …
Blended Scoring – Case Example: Creditinfo CRB Georgia
The economy is not dominated by large and multinational corporations. SME‘s are greatly responsible for economic growth and therefore are an important sector to focus on. Creditinfo Georgia has invested to develop specific tools to help companies provide better, more effective decisions to enable greater access to finance for SMEs. In Europe, for instance, 99% of businesses are small and medium enterprises, and at the same time they contribute 58 cents in every euro in economy. This situation is not specific to the Europe. This problem has attracted attention for the longest time. Investment companies over the world invest a …
BIG Data Lending in Sub-Saharan Africa, Responsibility is key to avoid pain of the past
The experience of the over-indebtedness crisis amongst the poorest in Kosovo and other regions such Andhra Pradesh in India is still a clear memory to those who had to manage the human and financial fallout from these situations. This type of crisis is caused by 2 factors; excessive liquidity largely from donor funded institutions and secondly no credit bureau infrastructure, or usage of it. Are we about to witness the same cycle in sub-Saharan Africa with the highly funded race to provide loans through the trend of alternative/big data, at a time when MFIs are yet to be integrated into …
5 reasons why you should check your credit report frequently!
The year 2014 began on a high note for Kenya’s Credit Information Sharing (CIS) mechanism, with the publication of the Credit Reference Bureau (CRB) Regulations 2013. The new Regulations opened a new chapter in the CIS mechanism by among others, allowing both commercial banks and microfinance banks (previously known as Deposit-Taking Microfinance Institutions – DTMs) to share information on their good and bad borrowers, away from the traditional approach of sharing information on defaulters only amongst commercial banks. Other provisions included the reduction of data retention rules from seven to five years, issuance of pre-llisting notices to borrowers before they …