Kenyan men love to impress by all means. With a few bucks in their wallets and a couple of digital loan apps in their smartphones, they can conquer Babylon. The advent of digital loans was warmly welcomed by Kenyans whose access to financial services from formal financial institutions was limited. However the proliferation of digital accounts has made Kenyans without bank accounts access funds, but a majority have deliberately failed to service their loans.
A recent survey by CreditInfo, an information provider on credit, conducted six months from November last year has indicated that the market is still heavily dominated by men who account for about 65% of mobile loans borrowed while the rest is by women, most of whom take up loans to support the commercial activities that they are engaging in. The survey also revealed that 70% of Kenyans default at will.
“Not everyone who defaults is necessarily bad. A majority of them is a character issue. Once they default in one loan they default in others too. Its a discipline issue managing their finances well, despite them being given an opportunity to have defaulted previously, we are still seeing that trend of default following through even after, ” said Kamau Munyiha, CEO CreditInfo.
According to the survey, 50% of loans were issued to people aged between 31 to 40 years, 21% to those aged 25 years and below, 19% to those aged 26 to 30 years and 9% to those aged between 41 to 50 years. 90% of customers surveyed borrowed from two lenders, 19 % borrowed from more than seven of the lenders, while 23% borrowed from one lender. Currently, there are over 50 lenders dishing out loans up to a maximum of Ksh 50,000, payable within three months.
