So the service seemed like a win-win-win, and to an outside observer, its dual operations in the United States and Kenya appeared to be progressing smoothly. Kiva Zip’s senior director, Jonny Price, sounded upbeat when he wrote on NextBillion in April, “We’re excited by (Zip’s) potential to revolutionize the way that small business owners in America, and the wider world, are able to access microcredit.” Meanwhile, over the past four years, the platform enabled more than 8,000 lenders to make almost 10,000 microloans totalling a reported $1.8 million to more than 6,500 borrowers in Kenya alone.
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(UPDATED) Weekly Roundup 10-2-15: Kiva Zip folds in Kenya - what happened? Updated with... - 0 views
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Kiva can benefit from partnerships that could improve its business. I believe that if the partnership deal is a win-win deal, kiva must take it! That's why I think that this partnership can help kiva improve its business a lot!
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Kiva Is Not Quite What It Seems | Center For Global Development - 1 views
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And finally in Kiva's defense, its behavior is emblematic of fund-raising in microfinance and charity generally, and is ultimately traceable to human foibles. People donate in part because it makes them feel good. Giving the beneficiary a face and constructing a story for her in which the donor helps write the next chapter opens purses. The pleasure of giving
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Kiva is the path-breaking, fast-growing person-to-person microlending site. It works this way: Kiva posts pictures and stories of people needing loans. You give your money to Kiva. Kiva sends it to a microlender. The lender makes the loan to a person you choose. He or she ordinarily repays. You get your money back with no interest. It's like eBay for microcredit.
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You knew that, right? Well guess what: you're wrong, and so is Kiva's diagram. Less that 5% of Kiva loans are disbursed after they are listed and funded on Kiva's site. Just today, for example, Kiva listed a loan fepor Phong Mut in Cambodia and at this writing only $25 of the needed $800 has been raised. But you needn't worry about whether Phong Mut will get the loan because it was disbursed last month. And if she defaults, you might not hear about it: the intermediating microlender MAXIMA might cover for her in order to keep its Kiva-listed repayment rate high.
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Like most innovations, Kiva is not entirely new. Rather, it is an ingenious fusion of older ideas. One is child sponsorship, which Save the Children pioneered in 1940. A family in a rich country sends $10 or $20 each month to a designated child in a poor country via a charity. In return, the family receives a photo and an update at least once a year. When I was perhaps eight, my family sponsored Constance, a Greek girl about my age, through Save the Children. I remember looking at her solemn face in two successive black and white portraits, trying to judge how much she had grown in a year.
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Kiva should be careful about spreading a fake image about the company. The article states that kiva is not what people thinks and that there's another company that helps her but I think that kiva business idea is very good because and people don't have to link it with something bad.
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This article has shown that KIVA spread the wrong image of its business. I think the company should be careful not to disseminate such information as it could destroy their image and people might not believe it anymore. -
the person-to-person donor-to-borrower connections created by Kiva are partly fictional. I suspect that most Kiva users do not realize this. Yet Kiva prides itself on transparency.
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AgroCenta CEO on the Challenges of Entrepreneurship in Ghana - 0 views
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Does being an entrepreneur in Ghana – and in a developing economy in Africa – presents any ulterior challenges you had overcome?Being an entrepreneur in Africa and in emerging markets, in general, is quite difficult because of the lack of structure and supports put in place by the government. It requires a lot of courage and persistence to get the simplest things done. Any simple tech solution that you might want to build can end up being a very complex challenge because it relies on services that do not exist or don’t work properly. Access to funding also remains a big problem for many entrepreneurs who will need money to test, pilot and scale a platform or a solution. Many investors are quite held back when it comes to making investments in Africa for an obvious reason: corruption.
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This excerpt is important because it reflects the challenges faced by AgroCenta in Ghana, i.e. corruption, lack of financing, lack of proper infrastructure, lack of government help, among other things.
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Our business model is simple, we are a B2B business that generates commission fees on trade volumes from the businesses we work with.
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This excerpt is extremely important because it clearly states the business model of the company.
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we are definitely improving the financial livelihood of smallholder farmers through fair trade. Many smallholder farmers are paid less than $1 a day and our objective is to increase it to $4 a day by 2020.
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AgroCenta is an extremely important concept because it is helping to increase farmers' salaries. Going from $1 a day to $4 a day is already an improvement.
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AgroCenta focuses on 3 key impact goals for Ghana:No Poverty: Gender Equality: in Sub-Saharan Africa, traditions and land ownerships do not favor women, which ends up in many women being excluded from the agriculture value chain. By engaging the relevant stakeholders, AgroCenta rents arable agricultural lands to female smallholder farmers for free. Women are also given seeds, fertilizers, mechanized tractor services and extensive advisory information on farming best practices such as what type of seed to plant, when to plant, how to plant, etc.Decent Work & Economic Growth: we empower smallholder farmers to see agriculture as more than just a way to survive and position it as a viable industry that can be sustainable for their family.
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as you can see this company cares a lot about the livelyhood of their farmers and is trying to provide them only with the best features that would make life easier which in fact the main things that they tackle in the SDGs.
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Seedstars Summit has been phenomenal. It has put AgroCenta on a pedestal and in the spotlight of a huge community in Africa. The experience after the Summit has been amazing: we received a lot of proposals from potential investors, partners and other service providers keen on working with us for growth and expansion.
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Winning the vote of the entire jury, AgroCenta from Ghana was crowned the Seedstars Global Winner of the 5th edition of Seedstars Summit. At Seedstars, we are convinced that AgroCenta will shape the future of AgriTech in Africa. Indeed, the start-up’s mission is to improve the financial livelihood of smallholder farmers through fair trade.
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Agrocenta will have a great impact on farmers in Africa since it will enable them to protect their production and have an insurace in case of any risks. It will also help them regulate the market of agricultural products in order to set a price for each one
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We identified a missing gap in the value chain that was the capacity to access the market for smallholder farmers after they have successfully cultivated their commodities. Access to the market was a huge problem for millions of smallholder farmers.
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AgroCenta is fulfilling a market gap that is the need for smallholder farmers to access the market.
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AgroCenta focuses as well as Seedstars on achieving the Sustainable Goals set up by the UN
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one of the main goals is to reach economic growth by empowering smallholders farmers to see agriculture not only as a survival solution but as an investment
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Gender Equality: in Sub-Saharan Africa, traditions and land ownerships do not favor women, which ends up in many women being excluded from the agriculture value chain. By engaging the relevant stakeholders, AgroCenta rents arable agricultural lands to female smallholder farmers for free. Women are also given seeds, fertilizers, mechanized tractor services and extensive advisory information on farming best practices such as what type of seed to plant, when to plant, how to plant, etc.Decent Work & Economic Growth: we empower smallholder farmers to see agriculture as more than just a way to survive and position it as a viable industry that can be sustainable for their family.
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Agrocenta main goals are the following: first and the most evident one no poverty especially for farmers who are not paid enough. second, gender equality and finally economic agricultural development within the country.
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A great team for sure! Our major strength has been a team made of people with diverse backgrounds and experiences and a deep understanding of the agricultural value chain. This asset allowed us to save a lot of time we would have naturally spent on trying to fine tune and launch the AgroCenta platform. Thanks to that we avoided making the common mistakes many new and unexperienced founders make.
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what we can understand is that having a great team is the key asset that led to the rapid growth of Agrocenta. cross-cultural team has been a plus for the development of agrocenta. it helped the company to save time and avoid making common mistakes that many new and inexperienced founders make.
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Many investors are quite held back when it comes to making investments in Africa for an obvious reason: corruption.
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Former Kiva.org CEO Starts Mobile Microfinance Effort in Kenya - 2 views
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The downloadable Branch app analyzes social and financial data on a borrower’s phone to determine creditworthiness before providing up to $20. Those with a “digital identity” too limited to establish credit standing can start off borrowing smaller amounts and climb a “trust ladder” to larger loans by timely repayment. Kiva.org, launched in 2005, facilitates more than a million dollars a week in small loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries by matching them with microlenders.
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The downloadable Branch app analyzes social and financial data on a borrower’s phone to determine creditworthiness before providing up to $20. Those with a “digital identity” too limited to establish credit standing can start off borrowing smaller amounts and climb a “trust ladder” to larger loans by timely repayment. Kiva.org, launched in 2005, facilitates more than a million dollars a week in small loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries by matching them with microlenders.
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Connecting lenders with borrowers is not an easy task. I think that we should give credits to Kiva for doing this great task!
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I like the fact that Kiva does give the chance to everyone to borrow money, even if you don't have a digital identity, which is in my opinion is a necessity in such a business model. It's also very interesting to see the volume of lending per week.
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Prosocial Crowdlending in Kenya - 0 views
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The crowdfunding industry has emerged in the past few years as one of the most promising alternative financing options. Lending and donating operations accounted for 81% of the crowdfunding industry's $34.4 billion total funding volume in 2015. Kiva Zip, a prosocial program, created an online platform that provides 0% interest peer-to-peer loans and has features in common with lending and donating crowdfunding platforms.
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I think that delivering a service with 0% interest rate is a brilliant idea from Kiva. Customers always look for cheap and efficient services and Kiva does provide these two components. Kiva has a brilliant future if they can control the social market because it's the future especially after this current pandemic.
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SimbaPay - Katapult Accelerator - 0 views
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SimbaPay is revolutionizing the $64 billion cross border payments market in Africa by allowing the diaspora community to send money directly to the banked and the unbanked at a 1/3rd of the cost of typical solutions used today. Using only the recipient’s phone number, SimbaPay’s technology ensures that payments are delivered within seconds to the recipient’s preferred mobile or bank account.
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SimbaPay sends money directly to the banked and the unbanked using only the recipient's phone number
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SimbaPay is revolutionizing the $64 billion cross border payments market in Africa by allowing the diaspora community to send money directly to the banked and the unbanked at a 1/3rd of the cost of typical solutions used today. Using only the recipient’s phone number, SimbaPay’s technology ensures that payments are delivered within seconds to the recipient’s preferred mobile or bank account.
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What we can say is that is very smart to use only the mobile phone to do a transfer of money. Banked and Unbanked people could benefit from this app. As we know there is still 1,7 billion people in the world that are unbanked, I found this move very smart.
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SimbaPay is revolutionizing the $64 billion cross border payments market in Africa by allowing the diaspora community to send money directly to the banked and the unbanked at a 1/3rd of the cost of typical solutions used today. Using only the recipient’s phone number, SimbaPay’s technology ensures that payments are delivered within seconds to the recipient’s preferred mobile or bank account.
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SimbaPay is revolutionizing the $64 billion cross border payments market in Africa by allowing the diaspora community to send money directly to the banked and the unbanked at a 1/3rd of the cost of typical solutions used today. Using only the recipient’s phone number, SimbaPay’s technology ensures that payments are delivered within seconds to the recipient’s preferred mobile or bank account.
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Simbapay is making a very good move by allowing the African community to be familiarized with digital platforms, it is a good step to make Africa more developed
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Uganda, Kenya Farmers to Reap from WorldCover Climate Insurance Funds | ChimpReports - 1 views
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Worldcover has raised $6m for farmers in Kenya, Uganda, and Ghana in order to overcame challenges that were raised because of the climate change.
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Prime Bank launches a international money transfer service, SimbaPay - Intelligent CIO ... - 0 views
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“Through our digital platforms, we aim to make available a one stop solution to our customers in terms of funds transfer and with the inclusion of SimbaPay, our customers will now send money to friends and family across the world at the comfort of their mobile phones,” added Kantaria.
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Customers need only to log into the bank's mobile banking app "primemobi" and click on international money transfer icon. After that, the sender's bank account will be debited and money credited to the beneficiary instantly.
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“Businesses, as well as Kenyans and expatriates with friends and family abroad, send over US$18 billion to other African countries, Asia and Europe annually with several billion Kenya Shillings going through the Simbapay network. Therefore, this service will offer Prime Bank’s customers a world-class fully digital international money transfer service,” added Karanja.
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Having a world-class fully digital international money transfer will be a plus for the African countries. Since businesses, Kenyans, and expatriates with family and friends abroad, send over 18 billion US dollars. With the collaboration of the two companies, people will feel more secure to send their money.
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A complete online international money transfer would be a bonus for African countries to have a world class. Since Kenyan businesses and expatriates send out over US$18 billion with family and friends abroad. The partnership of both businesses will ensure that people are safer in sending their money.
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Prime Bank’s Director for Business Development, Vijay Kantaria, said the tier 2 lender has embarked on investment in technology through partnering with various FinTechs to accelerate its digital integration plan.
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it is a good initiative to extend the digital world and bring more people into it
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To access the service, customers will need to log in to the bank’s mobile banking app – PrimeMobi, then click on International Money Transfer icon on the homescreen. After confirming the amount to be sent, the sender’s bank account will be debited and money credited to the beneficiary instantly.
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The easy access allows customers to transfer money internationally using a single account in homescreen.
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A complete online international money transfer would be a bonus for African countries to have a world class. Since Kenyan businesses and expatriates send out over US$18 billion with family and friends abroad. The partnership of both businesses will ensure that people are safer in sending their money.
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mpesa_d_1540.pdf - 0 views
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n April 2007, following a donor‐funded pilot project, Safaricom launched a new mobile phone‐based payment and money transfer service, known as M‐PESA. 10 The service allows users to deposit money into an account stored on their cell phones, to send balances using SMS technology to other users (including sellers of goods and services), and to redeem deposits for regular money. Charges, deducted from users’ accounts, are levied when e‐float is sent, and when cash is withdrawn.
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M‐PESA has spread quickly, and has become the most successful mobile phone‐based financial service in the developing world.
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BiSmart - 0 views
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Bismart Insurance enables the uninsured African population to access Insurance through co-creating relevant products with existing affinity groups like saccos, schools, welfare groups, Micro-finance institutions etc and connecting them to insurance companies through technology.
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customers are able to review and rate their insurance providers based on their experience
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Bismart Insurance enables the uninsured African population to access Insurance through co-creating relevant products with existing affinity groups like saccos, schools, welfare groups, Micro-finance institutions etc and connecting them to insurance companies through technology. At Bismart platform customers are able to reveiw and rate their insurance providers based on their experience, this forces insurance players to compete in giving our customers the best customer experience.
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I love this concept because it will help many Africans to be protected against different types of risks such as natural disaster, theft, weather conditions. It will also reduce the number of unbanked people across the African continent
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At Bismart platform customers are able to reveiw and rate their insurance providers based on their experience, this forces insurance players to compete in giving our customers the best customer experience.We enable customers to compare insurance policies from muiltiple providers not just based on price but based on benefits, exclusions and other customers reviews.
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Bismart allows customers to compare their insurance providers' services based on price, benefits, exclusions and reviews.
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Bismart Insurance - VC4A - 0 views
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Bismart is a Kenya-based company developing Africa’s first blockchain-powered InsureTech platform to address the primary pain points for African Insurance consumers, namely trust and affordability. The platform will include innovating savings and financial planning tools to help consumers save for and manage premium payments as well as leverage blockchain technology to increase transparency and efficiency.
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Bismart is capturing the upward mobile youth by adressing some points like trust and affordability.
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Bismart Insurance – VC4A Original: vc4a.com Insurance Penetration in Kenya is at 2.7% due Lack of education/Knowledge, Mistrust, inaffordability and lack of transparency.
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This article shows that Bismart insurance is trying to promote the concept of insurance in order to enhance its penetration in Kenya which is now estimated at only 2.7%.
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Bismart - Greentec - 0 views
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Bismart is working with GreenTec Capital and Konfid.io to develop a blockchain based solution to administer and process insurance claims. To facilitate insurance premium payments, the company is developing a mobile-money based digital wallet system with Flowcash to help users save up for payments.
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Insurance penetration in Sub-Saharan Africa is generally low due to distrust of the industry partially due to low financial literacy and the complexity of financial produts
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Kenyan insurtech startup Bismart raises funding from GreenTec - 0 views
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Kenyan insurtech startup Bismart has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from the Germany-based GreenTec Capital, which alongside initial investment will allow it to develop its platform and launch its service offerings by the start of Q4.
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the interface being developed by te bismart team allowing the distribution of insurance products across africa
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The startup will initially offer a small range of service and products that will be expanded quickly, with the interface being developed by the Bismart team allowing the distribution of insurance products across Africa, facilitating the rapid roll-out and scaling of the business. Bismart will also use blockchain-based smart contracts in order to facilitate policy management and offer the security of decentralised databases
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Bismart - Make-IT in Africa - 0 views
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Bismart offers potential insurance customers more transparency as a better basis for deciding between various insurance packages.
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This is particularly important as less than 10 percent of people in Subsaharan African are insured
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FarmDrive - 0 views
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FarmDrive collects and aggregates alternative datasets from multiple sources, in Kenya and around the world, to build credit scores for smallholder farmers in Africa.
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The datasets are analyzed by the machine learning algorithm to produce relevant credit scores for smallholder farmers
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FarmDrive: Connecting farmers to financing | Mercy Corps - 0 views
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While financial inclusion in the country has increased, many farmers remain excluded. Limited financing for farmers is due, in part, to a lack of available credible risk-assessment information for financial institutions. Many small farmers are unbanked and off the financial grid, without credit profiles to verify or back up details on their annual income, business expenses or yields.
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Without thiis information, farmers are left with little to no access to financial services, while lenders miss out on the opportunity to build their client base and agricultural loan portfolios.
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FarmDrive generates real-time credit reports for small farmers, allowing them to access loans from financial institutions and agricultural input providers via mobile phone.
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FarmDrive collects expense and revenue data from farmers via SMS and combines it with satellite imaging, remote sensing technology and alternative data points (e.g., soil analysis, weather forecasts) to create detailed yield estimates and assess credit risk.
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FarmDrive overlaps our focus areas of agriculture and financial inclusion, empowering the world’s most vulnerable farmers with the digital financial services they need to strengthen and improve their livelihoods.
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FarmDrive collects expense and revenue data from farmers and combines it with satellite imaging, remote sensing technology and alternative data points to create detailed yield estimates and assess credit risk.
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We’ve connected FarmDrive to various partners and expertise to help them scale, as its usage increases in other developing markets in sub-Saharan Africa.
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Reports allow credit providers to make informed lending decisions and easily reach rural clients, expanding access to financing for small farmers. As a result, farmers have greater control over their livelihoods – equipped with what they need to increase their crop yields, improve their incomes and invest their additional revenue back into their families and communities.
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FarmDrive collects data from farmers using different technologies which allows the company to generate farmers' credit reports which allow loan providers to make informed decisions and therefore give more access to financing to small farmers.
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Since, FarmDrive has reached hundreds of farmers with its suite of financial services, credit reports and financing options, with a particular focus on serving women and youth farmers typically neglected by the formal financial system.
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The focus that FarmDrive has on serving women is essential to keep in mind. We must dig deep as to why they are being neglected by the financial system and make sure that they never get fooled by them in the future.
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In Kenya, most small farmers — around 7.5 million — lack access to small loans to help them buy what they need to improve their production and make the most of their land – things like quality fertilizers, better seeds, livestock and micro-irrigation.
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Knowing the percentage of the population who do not own bank accounts as well as the percentages of loans that others have access to is a must to help improve the economic situation in Kenya. Such details, like interest rate, etc. are essential in helping people construct a well structured economic strategy so that all Kenyans benefit from these financial services and never fall back again.
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index.pdf - 0 views
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Kenyan agri-tech startup FarmDrive secures latest funding round - 0 views
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Kenyan agri-tech startup FarmDrive has accessed further financing as it expands operations to provide access to credit for three million smallholder farmers.
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the investment from strategic investors enabled farmdrive to build financial identities for more smallholder businesses
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Founded by Peris Bosire and Rita Kimani, FarmDrive delivers productive digital loans and lay away savings products to smallholder farmers in Kenya, helping them grow their incomes and resilience.
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Having previously raised funding from the likes of Safaricom and EWB Canada, FarmDrive has now secured further investment. EWB Canada is again involved in the round, which also includes AK Impact Investors, 1 to 4 Foundation, ADAP Seed Fund 2, The Lakes Charitable Foundation and Sunu Capital.
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The follow-on investment will allow FarmDrive to scale to US$13 million of loan, with minimal losses and exceptional returns
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Using a combination of agriculturally relevant data, Know Your Customer (KYC) data, and advanced behavioral analytics, the startup has developed a proprietary lending engine to extend loans to these farmers.
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The follow-on investment will allow FarmDrive to scale to US$13 million of loan originations in 2019 with minimal losses and exceptional returns using RiPe, a customisable lending engine that will allow lenders to plug in and access low-cost loan origination channels such as USSD, credit scoring, identity verification, and a portfolio management suite that includes recovery and collections, payments, customer support and advanced real time data analytics.
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FarmDrive is providing a range of services while focusing on its low-cost approach and maximizing its profit.
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“We are delighted for this investment from strategic investors to enable us to build financial identities for more smallholder businesses and scale our low cost distribution model. We are going where banks haven’t reached and are creating a trust ecosystem in the most unstructured sector in sub Saharan Africa – Agriculture,” said Bosire.
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FarmDrive agritech has the potential to take over the banking system in sub saharan Africa as it provides more structured services.
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Kenyan agri-tech startup FarmDrive has accessed further financing as it expands operations to provide access to credit for three million smallholder farmers.
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As I see it, Farmdrive needs and deserves all the financing it can get as it is creating a trust ecosystem in the most unstructured sector in sub Saharan Africa, which makes its operations extremely important.
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FarmDrive Helps Unbanked Farmers in Kenya | The Borgen Project - 0 views
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FarmDrive combats this lack of financial visibility by calculating alternative credit scores for Kenyan smallholder farmers. The startup requires users to input their expenses, revenue and yield via SMS and creates a platform for farmers to record business activity. FarmDrive then uses a complex algorithm to combine individual financial information with additional factors like the climate in the farmer’s region.
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farmdrive eliminates some of the risk for banks by considering both the self reported financial history of farmers as well as exogenous variables that will affect their crop yields
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By accruing farmer data, FarmDrive eliminates some of the risk for banks. FarmDrive has partnered with African financial firms who accept their alternative credit scores and determine appropriate loans for smallholder farmers. Lending institutions thus consider both the self-reported financial history of farmers as well as exogenous variables that will affect their crop yields.
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FarmDrive collects data from farmers via and combines it with satellite imaging, alternative data points to create detailed yield estimates and assess credit risk.
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FarmDrive depends on aid organizations, like USAID, and private firms that operate in the agricultural industry. FarmDrive is expanding its data collection through new partnerships with Planet, a satellite company, and The Impact Lab, a data analytics group, to potentially incorporate climate information gathered via satellite imagery into its algorithm.
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In addition to financial firms, FramDrive partners up with aid organizations, private firms operating in the agricultural industry, satellite company, and a data analytics group.
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There are 50 million smallholder farmers in Kenya, but less than 10 percent of this population has their economic needs fulfilled by traditional lenders. The agricultural sector makes up 32 percent of Africa’s GDP and employs 65 percent of its population, but less than 1 percent of bank lending goes to agriculture. Worldwide, there is an estimated $450 billion agricultural lending gap. African smallholder farmers face barriers to traditional lending because they are labeled high-risk borrowers by financial institutions. Traditional banks use credit scores and bank statements to determine a loan applicant’s riskiness. However, the average farmer in Africa cultivates fewer than five acres of land and owns no collateral or financial records.
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Unfortunaely for most farmers, they can't access credit from traditional banks because they are considered as high risk borrowers since they face many risks such as climate change, theft, lack of fertilizers. Now, through farmdrive everything changed with these new Fintechs who started giving more importance to farmers
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