Afrigather Safaricom, Kenya’s prime cellular community, has picked Pezesha, a digital lender, to supply credit score to small enterprise house owners, which can add to the telco’s present mortgage merchandise, together with M-Shwari and Fuliza. The brand new product, Mkopo wa Pochi, will enable small enterprise house owners to borrow cash immediately by their M-PESA enterprise accounts.
Mkopo wa Pochi, already obtainable by Safaricom’s M-PESA tremendous app by an replace rolling out in the present day, will complement Pochi la Biashara, Safaricom’s enterprise pockets for small enterprise house owners.
This marks Pezesha’s debut in Kenya’s cellular cash market by partnering with Safaricom, which can give it entry to the telco’s huge buyer base of over 32.4 million lively M-PESA customers.
Mkopo wa Pochi takes benefit of each firm’s strengths. Safaricom’s Pochi la Biashara has over 632,000 lively retailers, and processed $564 million (KES 73 billion) in transactions that generated $6 million (KES 800 million) in income for the operator between March 2023 and March 2024. Pezesha, however, is understood for its credit score partnerships and experience in digital lending, having labored with Marketforce, Kyosk App, and Rocket Well being.
Mkopo wa Pochi loans have a one-time entry price of two.76% on the borrowed quantity. Debtors have a 7-day time period with a single and non-compulsory 7-day extension. Extending the mortgage incurs a one-time price of three.85% for your complete 14-day interval, and late repayments might be topic to a 1% each day penalty for a most of seven days.
Pezesha will assess Pochi la Biashara clients’ creditworthiness utilizing instruments like credit score bureaus that listing mortgage defaulters.
“Pezesha could make a credit score evaluation after contemplating info from numerous sources, together with however not restricted to your corporation transaction historical past with Safaricom, your cellular cash account transaction historical past, your credit score info from the Credit score Reference Bureau, your historical past of use of the product and prevailing market situations,” Safaricom says within the product’s phrases and situations web page.
In Could 2024, Pezesha secured a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Worldwide Improvement Finance Company (DFC) to enhance its credit score scoring know-how. This adopted a $11 million pre-Collection A funding spherical in 2022 led by Ladies’s World Banking Capital Companions II.
