{"id":1655,"date":"2016-09-14T10:31:17","date_gmt":"2016-09-14T09:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=1655"},"modified":"2016-10-26T15:11:42","modified_gmt":"2016-10-26T14:11:42","slug":"technology-and-financial-inclusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2016\/09\/14\/technology-and-financial-inclusion\/","title":{"rendered":"Technology and Financial Inclusion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A former student used to work for a <strong>microfinance institution in Kenya<\/strong>. He quitted: he wasn\u2019t comfortable with the <strong>high rates and fee charges of traditional microfinance loans (37 % average)<\/strong>. Meant to promote financial inclusion, <strong>these loans may end up making borrowers poorer<\/strong> than they were. At the same time, the super-high interest rates have to do with the high risk the lender runs because it\u2019s difficult to <strong>evaluate creditworthiness<\/strong>. The good news is that <strong>technology can help overcome this problem<\/strong>, and contribute promoting financial inclusion.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1657\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1657\" style=\"width: 744px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1657 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/09\/Technology-and-financial-inclusion.jpg\" alt=\"Africa: Technology and financial inclusion.jpg\" width=\"744\" height=\"366\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/09\/Technology-and-financial-inclusion.jpg 744w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/09\/Technology-and-financial-inclusion-300x148.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/09\/Technology-and-financial-inclusion-500x246.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 744px) 100vw, 744px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1657\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Technology can help boost financial inclusion<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In Kenya, both start-ups and established banks are using technology to <strong>evaluate creditworthiness in unconventional<\/strong> ways. A couple of examples that I read in the latest issue of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theafricareport.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Africa Report<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/tala.co\/\" target=\"_blank\">InVenture<\/a><\/strong> is an U.S.-based start-up that describes itself as \u201cusing <strong>world class technology to revolutionize financial services in emerging markets<\/strong>.\u201d How? Through their <strong>Tala application<\/strong>, one can get instant loans up to Ksh 50,000 (about US$ 500 or \u20ac 440). Applying for the loan takes 5 minutes. The approval process takes into account contact information on mobile phones: if more than 40 % contacts listed include both first and last name, the owner of the mobile is estimated to be 16 times more likely to repay loans promptly.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sidianbank.co.ke\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Sidian<\/strong><\/a> is a mid-sized Kenyan commercial bank. They have partnered with <strong>Uber<\/strong> to offer car loans to Uber drivers at below average market rates (10.5 % vs. 18 %). Uber drivers that have made 500 rides and have a user rating of 4.6 out of 5 qualify for the loan. Sidian has allocated 10 billion (close to US$ 99 million or \u20ac 88 million) to this end.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Quite interesting! I want to make a couple of points:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>This reminds me of the \u201ctoothpick test\u201d<\/strong> \u2013 regular readers of this blog know what I mean by this: in contexts where statistics pose a challenge, decision-makers need to identify alternative indicators of what drives their businesses. You may learn more about this in an earlier post on the <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2014\/04\/23\/the-informal-economy\/\">informal economy<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Retail financial services are one of the multiple areas in which Africa can leapfrog<\/strong> \u2013 financial inclusion doesn\u2019t require a dense network of bank branches: a dense network of mobile phones may suffice, and that\u2019s already established in many countries in the continent.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Any thoughts about how you can use technology in your business?<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Related posts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/02\/25\/together-raw-materials-and-technology-can-transform-african-business\/\">Together raw materials and technology can transform African business<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2016\/05\/18\/connecting-africas-resources-through-digital-transformation\/\">Connecting Africa\u2019s resources through digital transformation<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2016\/01\/27\/the-4th-industrial-revolution-threat-or-opportunity\/\">The 4<sup>th<\/sup> Industrial Revolution: threat or opportunity?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A former student used to work for a microfinance institution in Kenya. He quitted: he wasn\u2019t comfortable with the high rates and fee charges of traditional microfinance loans (37 % average). Meant to promote financial inclusion, these loans may end up making borrowers poorer than they were. At the same time, the super-high interest rates [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1654,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99314,99106],"tags":[100253,139,100255,100258,995,27602,100256,58169,1346,81621],"class_list":["post-1655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-and-institutional-context","category-future-and-perspectives-for-africa","tag-creditworthiness","tag-finance","tag-inventure","tag-leapfrog","tag-loans","tag-microfinance","tag-sidian","tag-start-ups","tag-technology","tag-uber","megacategoria-mc-africa"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1655"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1660,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655\/revisions\/1660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}