Tag: kenya

How Busara Center’s unintuitive behavioural insights bring clarity to the complex, with Chaning Jang

Overview

A lot of the interviews on The East Africa Business Podcast have been related to individual companies telling their stories, and the lessons they’ve learned.

In this episode, you’ll no doubt come away with a lot of insight, though the dynamic is slightly different.

I’m speaking with Chaning, who is the co-founder of the Busara Center, a behavioural economics lab based in East Africa.

Their roots are in academia, though they have now branched out to applying the insights they generate to other organisations. We also have an interesting conversation around grants, and how Busara will typically work with clients to write grant applications to unlock funding.

In this episode Chaning and I discuss the multitude of problems which the lab have solved, similarities and differences in how people around the world act in certain situations, and how they have scaled to become an organisation of 150 employees operating in multiple countries.

Towards the end Chaning also references a pharmacies business that “sits downstairs”. Nairobi is a small city and he was referencing a company called Maisha Meds. You can listen to that interview that I had with Jess, the CEO by searching for the Medicine podcast in the archives.

As always would be very interested to hear any feedback you have on the podcast, but for now, here is Chaning.

 

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Other notes

Busara is a decision lab founded on how stress affects decision making. There’s an initial sense of a psychological poverty trap.

It started as academic, and now applies the learnings to organisations and business decision makers.

Busara now have 150 employees around the world. The “lab” is like a computer lab where people play behavioural economics games.

Behaviours move more along income levels, rather than geographical regions. i.e. low-income participants in Kenya and America behave more alike than Kenyans and Americans who are low-income and high-income.

The engagement that they have with clients is working together to solve business problems.

Partner with organisations to help writing grants i.e. solving a problem with a behavioural lens. Grant givers are looking to find innovative solutions to put their money on.

Some examples of the projects which they have funded, including a telco around funding agricultural financing.

There’s an ecosystem that exists around asking and evaluating behavioural questions, including Innovation for Poverty Action and ID Insights.

Companies come to Busara for: high quality data, insights generalisable to the wider industry, drive value in their company.

There are also different levels of project engagement: $20,000 (entry level), $50,000 (rigorous insights) or $100,000+ (longer term engagement).

Lessons and Insights

Biggest lesson: a little physical coin far outperforms SMS intervention in helping people save

Biggest insight: behaviour is more closely linked to income than nationality

Chaning’s big behavioural question: how to properly incentivise network agents to fully align with business goals

Links etc.

Website: http://www.busaracenter.org

Impact Investing: Beyond Capital’s perspective, with Brian Axelrad and Nicholas Java

Overview

In this episode I speak with Brian Axelrad and Nicholas Java: investors at Beyond Capital.

They are a special type of investor, which is the topic of our discussion.

Beyond Capital operates as an impact investor, an interesting player in the East Africa business space.

Like traditional investment, impact investment is fundamentally a vehicle for injecting money into ventures, the difference lies in that the success of the investment is measured not just in financial terms, but also for social good.

As we discuss, this can be a tricky concept to define – but the broad sense is that these investments will accept a trade off on pure financial return on investment, in exchange for promoting pre-defined societal objectives.

For Beyond Capital they invest in businesses that address the lack of access to basic goods.

We go through how they whittle down opportunities in their pipeline, the challenges of reporting on impact and, where they see the greatest opportunity for impact in the social entrepreneur space.

With this episode there are also lots of links and reports that we mention, and so be sure to check out the show notes for more information about both Beyond Capital and impact investment in general. You can find more info via https://theeastafricabusinesspodcast.com/2018/08/16/impact-investing-beyond-capitals-perspective-with-brian-axelrad-and-nicholas-java/

 

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Beyond Capital’s criteria

In the investments they make, companies need to be financially stable, with long term prospects for financial return, but also how it’s going to behave as a responsible citizen. On the impact front, lack of access to basic goods is what drives their definition of impact.

Intentionality is important for impact investment

In order to be classified as impact investment, the consensus is that the initial intention behind the investment should be for impact reasons. i.e. most people invested in Uber not for impact reasons, but through a different lens, it’s reduction of greenhouse gases through the sharing economy could be classified as such.

9 capital investments

Half in India and half in East Africa. This has come from looking at 500 companies.

Deal flow comes from a local presence

This has been with Ben Grozier and Mehak Malik. They meet with businesses and are able to find opportunities in different stages of the pipeline.

Beyond Capital avoids education

Difficult to measure the impact. It also almost always involves the public sector which makes things difficult. Instead, B2C models which more directly provide access to the basic needs that people are missing is a much more direct fit.

Investors don’t sign NDAs

Their reputation is their lifeblood. There’s a level of trust between the entrepreneur and the investor which will develop over time.

“We play in the capital gap”

The area that Beyond Capital play in as at the “seed” and “pre-seed” areas.
In other parts of the world there would be disposable capital from angel investors which would fill that gap, but in East Africa and India there’s not as much to in the market to do so.

Aligning reporting on the impact

There are different levels of how to quantify the impact that the business has. This goes from the entrepreneur doing it anyway, towards more hands on approaches of how to measure the impact. It’s difficult to legal bind someone to their impact goals.

Biggest opportunity?

Brian: Using technology to facilitate financial inclusion
Nicholas: Agriculture supply chain development

Website links etc.

Website: https://www.beyondcapitalfund.org/
One of Beyond Capital’s investments is Kasha, which you can learn more about at: http://kasha.co/
Matt’s blog post on impact scorecard: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/beyond-numbers-how-why-measuring-social-impact-matt-raimondi/
Global Impact Investors Network (GIIN): https://thegiin.org/
Brian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/baxelrad/
Nicholas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-java-083a9226/
Beyond Capital on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/beyond-capital-fund/
Beyond Capital on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/beyondcap/

Big Data Lending: unlocking commercial capital for Africa with Daniel Goldfarb from Lendable

Overview

It’s widely acknowledged that one of the biggest prohibitions to the development of East Africa is lack of capital.

The global economy is premised on aggregating savings in, say, pension funds and then deploying it to areas where it will earn a return.

This investment is what generates economic activity – stimulating business growth and creating jobs.

It also generates a return for those running, say, the pension fund to disperse to their members.

Traditionally this large scale movement of money has happened only in developed markets.

Developed markets are structured in a way that allows finance professionals to calculate the riskiness of an investment, and therefore feel comfortable parting with their capital with an expectation it will be paid back.

Traditionally, the methodology for deciding whether to invest big pools of money in Africa has been done using the same framework as for developed markets.

This hasn’t bode well.

In short the techniques for deciding how much money to invest have meant that only small amounts could be safely deployed.

Lendable have taken a different approach.

They are a technology enabled debt platform created to help non banking lenders scale.

They use in-house software tools and algorithms to analyze loans and offer facilities that make sense for lenders based on their loan books.

It might sound simple, but this approach of a buying a loan book, rather than looking at the assets that a company has, is a paradigm shift towards creditworthiness and has meant the company has been
able to unlock millions of dollars of capital that, using the old frameworks, wouldn’t have been deployed.

Now, I appreciate that might all sound a bit technical and advanced but Daniel, Lendable’s CEO and I go into the details of how this works – as well as tales along the way of running their business through two Kenyan elections, and what it takes to attract US Hedge Funds to invest in Africa.

This is, for me at least, a great episode around how large scale impact can be achieved through facilitating the transfer of wealth from the developed to developing world.

 

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Lessons & Insights

Biggest insight: when times are tough people spend more on electricity

Biggest lesson: by rethinking risk we can unlock millions of dollars for Africa

Website etc.

Website: Lendable Marketplace

Twitter: Lendable

A “one for one” model delivering nutritious hot lunches for schoolchildren, with Wawira Njiru

Overview

Most people have somewhat underwhelming memories of school lunches.

Bland, uninteresting food which likely compelled you to go off at break time to the local shop and eat sugary doughnuts, a chocolate bar and a bag crisps. Or chips, for our American listeners.

This dynamic is somewhat similar in the Ruira county of Kenya, just outside the capital Nairobi.

The difference though, is that the option of meals at school is non-existent.

 

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That is until Wawira Njiru started Food 4 Education, an organisation that provides nutritious and affordable meals to 1,600 school kids every day.

She and I cover all parts of the operation including setting up relationships with schools,the economies of scale in their food production and how the school meal programme is funded by their for profit catering business, as well as (indirectly) from the Lonely Planet travel guide company.

This episode is a great example of a organisation stepping in to fill a market need, with the help of other interested parties.

Wawira and I talk about how she feels there is not a wholly sustainable business model in just providing affordable lunches in rural schools, but I think you’ll agree after listening that undertaking creative ways to make it sustainable, including lessons from India, is a good thing for the world.

In market economies, entrepreneurs are typically drawn to businesses that will yield the greatest profit.

If two options involve the same input of time and resource, traditional economics would suggest that the one that is most likely to give high returns is favourable.

Of course though, many entrepreneurs have other motives at play, and Wawira Njiru is one such person – pursuing the business of delivering affordable nutritious meals to low-income Kenyan school kids.

The facts around the importance of good nutrition are compelling on both an academic and anecdotal level.

Many studies point to the positive correlation of nutritious food and school attendance, and you also instinctively that if you don’t have a midday meal – your concentration wanes in the afternoon.

This episode is all about how Food 4 Education is bridging that gap, by taking a “for profit” mentality to tackling a societal problem where, under normal conditions, the market wouldn’t solve it.

We discuss the intricasies of their model, as well as plans to scale in line with a Public Private Partnership in India that serves 1,600,000 school meals each day.

Wawira’s recommendation to policymakers is that, because Indian law mandates Corporate Social Responsibility, programmes such as providing nutritious school meals have much more support, and can a greater impact.

It is, for me at least, a great example of co-ordinating multiple parties with similar needs to solve an issue that would otherwise be overlooked.

Lessons and Insights

Biggest insight: schoolkids don’t need shiny laptops, they need wholesome hot meals.

Biggest surprise: I need to be thinking waaaay bigger with what this can achieve.

Find them Online

Website: http://food4education.org/f4e/

Facebook: food4education

The social (and commercial) upsides of building an online parenting platform, with MumsVillage

Overview

One of the upsides of the internet is the ability to collect and store information that was previously only passed down between generations, or spread by word of mouth.

One of its downside though, is that it’s a very big place, and trying to find relevant information can be a thankless task in a world where we’re all short on time.

Of all the information that’s out there, Mums Village is looking to organise it for a discrete set of people

Mums in Kenya.

Isis, the founder of Mums Village, and I discuss the platform she has built.

 

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We go into what Kenyan Mums are wanting to know about, the partnerships they’ve built with local and international business and how she’s seeing the next wave of internet users engaging with content in a different way

What I like about this is how Mums Village sits in the middle of two sets of people who each have a need.

Namely, that they are providing value to Mums (whom they don’t charge) and that this aggregation into one place is valuable for brands looking to connect with them (where they do charge).

This is a good lesson for any entrepreneur looking at creative ways in which they can build a business.

Also, we make reference to a podcast interview with a company called Lynk.

You can listen to that episode by searching for the Services Marketplace episode when scrolling through the archive

In industry circles, it’s known that new Mums are a valuable market segment to own.

As a consumer juggling many responsibilities, they are typically willing to trade time for money, however this comes with an expectation of a higher level of trust.

When it comes to building trust, people generally favour getting advice from those they know already, and with the advent of the internet, it’s possible for these discussions to be happening online.

Mums Village is taking the conversations at the school gate and aggregating them into an online platform.

This includes all types of media, whether it be articles, forums or even a TV show, all with the central message of making the lives of Mums easier.

In order to bring greater value to their users, the platform partners with organisations looking to connect with Mums, offering products and services that will be of benefit to them.

The platform has been going for a couple of years already, and with Isis’ experience scaling Google and MTV across Africa, they are setting their sights beyond just Kenya.

This is a great episode both for learning how to build a two-sided business, being at the frontier of converting offline conversations online, and also to hear about insights on the East African parent.

Lessons and Insights

Biggest insight: I’ve had to unlearn my approach to how users will find us online

Our content: We’ve given brands a new way to engage via The Mums Village Show

Find them Online/Other Helpful Links

Website: https://mumsvillage.com/

Facebook: MumsVillage

Twitter: MumsVillage

Instagram: mumsvillage

Mums Village show: mumsvillage.com/videos/

Lynk podcast episode: Service Marketplaces

How the “Distributed Economy” thesis could revolutionise how we think about Africa’s development

Overview

This is a slightly different episode of The East Africa Business Podcast where  we’ll be covering a thesis around development.

When you consider how countries and societies have spurred economic growth it has all happened through urbanization.

Streams of people moving from rural livelihoods to populate cities where they would find a better life and more opportunities.

Underpinning all this was energy.

Opportunities and wealth are a function of economic productivity and in order to produce more, power is needed to run, say, factories.

Historically this has been generated centrally, in a power station and sent out via the grid.

This has favoured a society built around these central sources of power and hence led to the rise and growth of cities.

Azuri Technologies, however believes that this same path does not need to be taken in Africa

 

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In this episode Conrad Whitaker and I discuss macro trends around the continent’s development,how off-grid solar can change the paradigm for migration patterns and ultimately what their view of the future is with the distributed economy.

I’d love to hear any feedback you have for this episode. I certainly found it to be one of the most thought-provoking interviews done to date.

(hence why it goes on for a little longer)

More information

How countries and societies develop is a fascinating discussion, and one which acts as a bedrock for any understanding of how businesses operate.

This episode offers a new perspective on the paradigm which Africa can take, opening up the possibility to leap frog the development paths taken in other parts of the world.

Azuri Technologies are in the business of providing low-income households with their first reliable electricity source, through solar powered devices.

Whilst a light bulb (and satellite TV) could be viewed as just basic necessities, the fact that these have been powered through individual energy sources (as opposed to “grid” electricity) is, to Azuri, just the first step in a new trajectory of development.

Going forward, other basic needs can be provided to rural communities without the need of building expensive and difficult foundational infrastructure.

The interview is longer than normal as we delve into Africa’s current status quo and how it might differ from elsewhere in history.

We discuss how enabling basic infrastructure increases economic productivity in people which then catalyses economic growth. An example being that with light at night, children can study more and people can spend more time cultivating their land.

If listening at home and thinking how an idea you have might hit into the bigger picture of the continent’s development, this episode is a must.

Lessons and Insights

Next big thing: solar powered irrigation systems 

Biggest insight: “The distributed economy theory predicts that Africa’s development will leapfrog the West”

Find them Online

Website: http://www.azuri-technologies.com/

Facebook: AzuriTechnologies

Twitter: Azuri_Tech

YouTube: azuritechnologies

Kasha opens up access to sanitary pads in East Africa through last-mile distribution

Overview

There are certain products which, let’s face it, are more embarrassing to purchase than others.

You don’t think twice about buying a pint of milk, however things such as contraceptives, or sanitary items make you a bit more self-conscious, especially if you’re an awkward teenage girl.

Kasha an enterprise in Rwanda, started by solving the very discrete problem around girls accessing to affordable, quality sanitary items which can cause long-standing societal issues, such as school drop-out, if not solved.

 

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They are now running an ecommerce platform delivering female products throughout East Africa to women on all levels of the social spectrum.

Joanna, the CEO and I discuss the different customer segments they have on Kasha,the mechanisms by which they reach their users,and how their B2B offering of data-backed insights is funding those customers typically overlooked as unprofitable.

We conducted this interview in Joanna’s office, in Kigali and near the end, there was a huge downpour of rain which you can hear in the background.It doesn’t distort the interview, and if anything brings you closer to appreciating the changing microclimates of Rwanda, but just a heads up, in case you’re wondering.

For now though, let’s get started on this great episode with Joanna.

Kasha is a social enterprise based from Rwanda, but which is soon expanding to Kenya, and then beyond.

Joanna started her career at Microsoft, and then at Gates Foundation, the latter being an early sponsor of a pilot they were running.

The mission driving Kasha is that no girl should be prevented from access affordable, quality healthcare products.

This means having various channels for the different customer types, based on their income, but more importantly geography: we spend time discussing the various routes to market needed for both urban and rural delivery.

More recently Kasha has moved into other products that females wish to buy, namely in the beauty section.

The business makes money from various channels, one of which is the insights and feedback possible from their rural customer base. Companies such as Unilever have no way to get such feedback, and so the Kasha platform is able to provide.

Lessons and Insights

Biggest learning: even though we’re e-commerce, a call centre is incredibly important in building trust.

Biggest insight: “Bottom of the Pyramid” customers are even more aspirational than I imagined.

Social media etc.

Website: http://kasha.co

Twitter: KashaRwanda

Instagram: kasharwanda

Facebook: kasharw

The need to digitalise the pharmacy business in East Africa, and the benefits that come when you do

Overview

Pharmacies are found in almost every community in East Africa, however the way in which they are currently operating leaves a lot of room for improvement

The business is largely run from pen, paper and phone meaning shop owners don’t have the visibility on how everything is run.

Beyond this though, there is a huge potential to drive change in the medical space through formalising the way in which medicine is delivered across the region.

In this episode Jess Vernon, CEO of Maisha Meds and I discuss how her technology company is using data to improve how local pharmacies are run and their ambitions to transform the broader industry.

 

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Moved to Kenya 8 years ago

This has been my goal for nearly a decade. I went back to the US for medical school before returning to work on improving private sector health

It’s a Point of Sale system for pharmacies

We collect data on everything there is to do pharmacies. This helps them with their supply chain operations.

There are 6,000 licensed pharmacies

MM operates in Western Kenya where half the population lives. Currently there are 100 pharmacies signed up by our operational team.

Credit is biggest feature

that pharmacies request. Almost all of them do it, but MM now has this as part of the software. Pharmacies are now able to track the credit they give.

We take $100 downpayment

Most people pay between $100-200 to set up.

The owner is away

And so the main use case is being able to see, at a glance, what is happening with their pharmacy. Visibility is key.

Medication packages

This is our main focus for 2018 – helping them grow their business through the insights we collect.

Most medicine is made in India and China

MM is plugging into existing supply chains. There are usually 3/4 touch points to get to the pharmacy and so we’re looking to move up the chain.

“Maisha means life in Swahili”

It used to be a name about trees, but that had connotations with witch craft/ herbal medicine.

“We leverage the data across the supply chain”

As opposed to other POS systems that just track the movement of stock etc. This is the part which makes us relevant in the health sector.

Strategy is to get usage

And so we focus on getting in pharmacies around the region. For this, we partner with the Gates Foundation, GIZ and other grant funders.

A great product is driving growth

As a result of having a stellar software developer who can run the process.

There’s seasonality

It depends on when people receive throughout the year, as well as at the beginning/ end of the month

“During harvest time, our sales go up”

People have more money around this time which trickles through society, including a spike at Christmas once city family go home.

“We compete with a Whatsapp group of pharmacy suppliers”

Currently pharmacies make orders are made over the phone, with prices being quoted on a case by case basis.

MM can drive what pharmacies sell

We can shift towards having evidence based medicine in pharmacies as well as diagnostic tests.

Social Media

Twitter: https://twitter.com/maishameds

Website: https://maishameds.org/

TechCrunch article on market networks (which are like Maisha Meds)

African rocketship BitPesa use blockchain to enable international payments, with Elizabeth Rossiello

Overview

This week we’ve got an excellent episode which looks at applying breakthrough technology, to frontier markets.

You’ve probably heard of Bitcoin and blockchain, and here Elizabeth Rossiello CEO and founder of Bitpesa and I discuss how this technology can help African businesses grow through improving how they make international payments.

Why? Well in mature markets there’s a lot of liquidity between different currencies, meaning if you wanted to trade between Euros to Dollars to Pounds, the fact there’s lots of people trading it means you can get a good price.

However, when you are looking to trade African currencies, there’s not so much activity meaning companies are getting caught with high high prices to move money around the world, such as paying suppliers.

Bitpesa has stepped in to provide financial remittance services for anyone wanting to buy or sell African currencies, with Bitcoin and digital currencies acting behind the scenes to smoothen the process.

Just a heads up that this interview took place over an internet call which is different to the in person episodes done to date, and also that Elizabeth will be speaking at The Economist’s Innovation Summit in Nairobi, and so be sure to check that out if you’re interested in learning more.

 

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The business began 2013

I’d been working with MFIs across Africa. The issue I saw was businesses needing to get financing in local currency.

A way to buy African currency abroad

Is the problem Bitpesa solves. We’ve looked at how technology can solve this problem. B2B quickly became the best use case.

Bitcoin is part of our technology suite

We use Bitcoin as one our digital currencies. 70% of the business touches Bitcoin at some point. “We love using Bitcoin, but we’re not obsessed with it”.

Transferwise is a potential customer

Bitpesa is a market maker in African currencies. It’s brought about from having on the ground operations in all African countries.

Raised $10m

This has spent on physical operations, licences and IP. We use debt financing for inventory float.

Joint ventures weren’t for us

When it comes to growth, whilst it might be quicker to partner with a local company, going forward this isn’t the best way to generate value.

Typical use case

Nigerian pharmacy needing to pay suppliers in Hong Kong. They deposit Nigerian currency and Bitpesa pays out in Hong Kong Dollars.

Digital currencies allow us to extend beyond our reach

When we don’t have a physical bank account, we’ll send money to a broker who will accept, say, Bitcoin.

We’re not caught up in Bitcoin fluctuations

The transaction is executed almost instantaneously, and the risk is also mitigated just like any other broker that’s operates around the world. It’s just a different technology.

There haven’t been many African exits

Which means investors can be unsure about investing in the region. There was also a fizzle of the mobile money innovation in Kenya where regulators got in the way of innovation.

“Advice to regulators: don’t close your eyes to innovation”

You can’t stand in the way of an ocean of innovation. Regulators seem to be receptive to the idea of using Bitcoin and blockchain technology and so I’m excited for this.

I don’t believe there’ll be one mono-currency

And so I’m a firm believer that fiat currencies will remain in 50 different countries – we’ll be there for companies to exchange money in those regions.

Social Media Follows etc.

Website: www.bitpesa.co

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bitpesaltd/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BitPesa

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bitpesa/

Revolutionising access to credit in Africa through Peer-to-Peer lending, with Hilda Moraa

Overview

Many international studies have pointed to the lack of SME financing as being a huge blocker to a country’s development.

In the context of Kenya, many small business owners are excluded from the formal financial sector due to the high operational costs involved with opening and running a bank account. As a result, they have no formal credit history and are not able to get a loan.

Pezesha are seeking to overcome this by giving the unbanked, their first step on the formal financial ladder.

Hilda, the founder and CEO, and I dig into the difficulties of getting a bank account (and by extension, a loan), how Kenya’s ubiquitous mobile money network facilitates their business, and how they are layering on their data analytics to the dynamics of the existing social investing culture in Kenya.

This is one of those episodes that can leave you scratching your head at times, but nevertheless shows the huge potential for technology and financing to transform a region.

 

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Pezesha means financial empowerment

We empower the unbanked population through affordable mobile credit. This brings hope and freedom to them.

We’re not a lender per se

We’re sitting in between and creating a platform that builds upon the sharing economy.

Our customers can’t go to a bank

To get a loan to grow their business. This is because they don’t have any financial history or any formal credit records to verify them.

The majority of Kenya lives on <$5/day

The banks see them as risky and, because it costs money to run a bank account in Kenya, simply having a bank account open costs operational fees which excludes them.

The unbanked have moved to mobile credit

Mobile money penetration is at 85%. Hilda’s grandmother has M-Pesa, living upcountry.

M-Pesa has become the bank of the unbanked

Allowing them to transact, and send and receive money. This gives them the services previously only possible with a (paid) bank.

We utilise chamas

A chama is a social network who come together to save and invest around a common goal. The money is typically rotated around the group. People meet in person, regardless of social background.

“Pezesha is automating Kenya’s social investing culture”

This comes from partnering with the chama network. This means bringing in technology to, say, credit score their members as well as increase the level of financing that they get.

Fund of funds

There’s then a dynamic of external investors funding the chama group and become part of the returns.

“We have Kenyans lending to Kenyans they’ve never met before”

On the back of Pezesha’s platform, it’s possible to build trust. The credit score combines a borrower’s willingness and ability to pay.

Alternative data

We use mobile money transactions, as well as different datasets to profile and understand the customer. This means we’re not reliant on just one form of information (i.e. M-Pesa transactions) but having things such as psychometric tests as well.

Agents on the ground

We have people who are our out doing a lot of the onboarding and collections out in the field.

We want people to walk up the financial ladder

The ideal is that they can walk in and get a bank account and a loan as a result of the credit history that they have got from Pezesha. We want to normalise the effect so others can trust the unbanked population.

We’re a data company

We sit in between existing financial players and utilise credit scoring.

You get a 7-12%/ year return at the bank

Despite this being high, investors won’t be proud with that type of return. With Pezesha, you get 13-36% annually.

Average loan size is $50

This is used to buy weekly stock and then 30 days later, they’ll pay $55.

People are paying back!

This was one of the (nice) surprises: that there are lots of the unbanked population who are still paying back on their loans. This is in part because by paying back they are helping to fund other fellow Kenyans.

Website links etc.

Website: www.pezesha.com

This gives details on how to be a borrower or a lender on Pezesha.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Pezesha/

Partners: CGAP, DFS Lab