Getting a business loan requires five steps, including finding the right loan type and if you prequalify. Getting a small-business loan is a major hurdle facing small businesses, mainly due to tight lending standards by banks. But obtaining outside financing is often necessary to start or grow a business or cover day-to-day expenses, including payroll…
Last month, our colleague Ruth Odera spoke to Caroline Njenga on KBC News to discuss issues with the current housing sector in Kenya and share her ideas on how microfinance can help in tackling their housing crisis as well as the growth of informal settlements in Kenya. Ruth suggested that, if the correct steps are…
The Innovation of the Day from trendwatching.com Twiga Foods in Kenya, a platform helping farmers distribute produce to food stalls, partnered with IBM to extend microloans to stall vendors. IBM created a system to help these sellers receive credit scores; a machine learning algorithm analyzes their mobile purchase records and calculates a credit score. The end-to-end lending process…
This story was originally reported by Kagondu Njagi and edited by Robert Carmichael for the Thomson Reuters Foundation. For the women of Tuluroba village’s self-help group, the goal was simple: use their combined savings to buy cattle, fatten them and sell them to the beef industry for slaughter. But there was a problem. “We had…
