Cooperative Bank of Oromia & Kifiya Financial Technology announces partnership for the launch of Ethiopia’s first uncollateralized digital lending product, Michu.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, January 12, 2022, Cooperative Bank of Oromia (Coop bank) and Kifiya Financial Technology (Kifiya), today announced a new partnership and launched a digital lending product named Michu.
Coop bank’s Michu is Ethiopia’s first uncollateralized digital lending product, powered by Kifiya’s Qena, an AI-driven digital lending platform.
The partnership allows Coop bank to tap into Kifiya’s digital lending technology and give Kifiya the ability to leverage Cooperative Bank of Oromia distribution and financial capacity. The Bank will offer lending solutions targeting Micro, Small, and medium businesses (MSMEs), providing access to credit, through groundbreaking and cutting-edge credit scoring systems.
Research shows that Ethiopia’s MSME Financing to GDP Ratio was 2% in 2020. This ratio is lower than South Africa’s 14% and Kenya’s 6% in 2020. Ethiopia’s poor ratio is attributed to the crowding-out of credit by the public sector and high requirements for a loan to MSMEs by Micro-Finances and Commercial Banks.
Financial institutions place high requirements partly due to a lack of credible credit ratings. Michu’s ease of access enables users to apply for loans and receive decisions based on credit scoring logic. The loan application process from eligibility and verification to analysis, scoring, and loan disbursement gets completed within a few minutes.
“We are excited to join hands with Kifiya as we expand our digital financial offerings and deliver support to the financing needs of micro and small businesses that are often neglected but represent a significant part of the economy.”, says Deribie Asfaw, President of Cooperative Bank of Oromia.
“Today’s partnership with Coop bank marks an exciting era for the Ethiopian Digital Economy as Kifiya’s Qena technology heralds uncollateralized digital lending in the country. With the help of our AI-powered credit scoring digital lending platform, we hope to address the needs of uncollateralized finance in MSMEs sector in Ethiopia”, says Munir Duri, CEO of Kifiya Financial Technologies PLC.
Michu has offerings, both loans in the form of loans and overdraft facilities, for Micro, Small, and Medium Businesses. The Microloans are aimed towards the working capital needs of roadside traders and micro businesses with a maximum loan amount of 30,000 ETB and a repayment period of 1-4 months.
Whereas, the MSME loans targets traders at small and medium levels with a maximum loan amount of 150,000birr and a repayment period of up to one year. Moreover, the loans are intended to cover the working capital of the MSMEs. Michu also has another product targeted at employees of various organs called Consumer Loan.
The non-collateral digital lending product is a new desired loan service that is innovative and makes the loan service process swift, non-collateral, easy to access at anytime and anywhere. The product uses data to determine credit worthiness as well as a flexible payment method. Michu digital lending product is expected to increase Coop bank borrowers by 30% during the pilot period.
For more information please contact:
Cooperative Bank of Oromia (Coop bank)
Mr: Abdi Fekede
Position: Director MSME
T: +251 911026530
E: abdif@coopbankoromia.com.et
Kifiya Financial Technologies PLC
Ms: Lewam Assefa
Position: Head Marketing – Qena
About Cooperative Bank of Oromia
The Cooperative Bank of Oromia was legally established and registered on October 29, 2004, in accordance with article 304 of the commercial code of Ethiopia and officially inaugurated on March 08, 2005.
The emerging financial services were primarily focused on wealthy individuals and large enterprises mainly in urban areas. The rural population, particularly farmers, small businesses owners, and large communities were excluded from financial services. Thus, the Cooperative Bank of Oromia was set up to correct this market failure and to overcome the associated problems of asymmetric information in favor of borrowers.
More than 67% of the bank share is owned by cooperatives, associations, individual farmers, and small business owners. The bank has been operating with the prime objective of transforming the livelihoods of farmers, micro, small, and medium business enterprises by enhancing their access to finance.
In doing so the bank has made a tremendous change for the past fifteen years in transforming farmers, MSME’s business, and other parts of a community that is financially excluded.
Using Michu digital lending platform Cooperative Bank of Oromia provides access to non-collateralized loans for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises. Michu is a credit score-based digital lending platform that addresses risk components for the bank. The credit scoring system provides a means of systematically and objectively assessing the risk and growth potential of MSMEs, thus allowing the platform to make a risk-based decision and reducing management and operational costs of small amount loans.
About Kifiya:
Kifiya financial Technologies was established in 2010 and operational in 2013 with the vision to make transactions simple affordable, secure, and within reach through building integrated and scalable technology and distribution infrastructures that enable access to financial and non-financial services.
Kifiya also built the capacity to develop innovative products and services that can bring value to consumers, cooperate entities, and the government. Its technology focusing areas include e-commerce, Logistics, Payment & Distribution services, Digital Agricultural solutions, and Digital Lending services.
In partnership witKifiya’s has over the past five years been developing AI-based credit scoring and digital lending platform (Qena), and appropriate products for the MSME sector to enable financial institutions to provide credit to individuals, micro, small and medium enterprises. The platform enables MSMEs, and individuals to apply and manage their credit through mobile or web and get responses in a timely manner.