mobile loans

Kenya: Equity digitising SME lending with eye on higher repayments

By Sherif Tarek

Reserved for subscribers

Posted on January 3, 2023 14:18

© Customers are pictured on their motorcycle taxis outside the Equity Bank Kasarani branch in the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya March 22, 2022. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi — Customers are pictured on their motorcycle taxis outside the Equity Bank Kasarani branch in the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya March 22, 2022. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi

The overwhelming majority of loans from Equity Group Holdings are processed via mobile in Kenya, where the pan-African bank is now seeking to further push for digital SME lending, says Mary Wangari Wamae, the group executive director.

“Right now [in Kenya], about 95% of all the loan transactions in the bank are happening on the mobile [phone],” she told The Africa Report on the sidelines of the African Financial Industry Summit in Togo in late November.

There's more to this story

Get unlimited access to our exclusive journalism and features today. Our award-winning team of correspondents and editors report from over 54 African countries, from Cape Town to Cairo, from Abidjan to Abuja to Addis Ababa. Africa. Unlocked.

Subscribe Now

cancel anytime

Already a a subscriber Sign In

More Business

South Africa’s Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana speaks during his 2023 budget speech in Cape Town, South Africa. (Reuters/Shelley Christians)

No money

South Africa: Tempers boil as welfare state eyes $7bn bill Political tensions are mounting in South Africa as the overburdened state welfare system becomes too expensive to maintain.

© The Congo Basin rainforest absorbs the equivalent of all of Africa’s carbon emissions. (Jens Grossmann/LAIF-REA)

Fair pay

UN joins Congo basin presidents in call for higher carbon-credit prices in Africa Developing African countries are asking for larger pollution offsets in order to preserve their environments.

Ryad Mezzour, Moroccan Minister for Industry and Trade. DR

well-rounded

Ryad Mezzour: Morocco is establishing genuine industrial sovereignty Decarbonisation, electric battery factories, renewable energies and more: the Moroccan Minister of Industry and Trade details his country’s strategy f...

The Husab uranium mine in western Namibia. 11 May 2018. Wu Changwei/Xinhua/REA

multiple agreements

From DRC to Madagascar, Japan weaves its web with critical metals From exploration to exploitation, Japan has signed a series of contracts with three African countries to secure its supplies of critical minerals.