Billionaire sues mobile money app over Sh1000 loan

Mr Peter Nduati, Founder of Resolution Group and the CEO Centric Air. [Photo: Courtesy]

A businessman has sued a money lending company after it listed him with the Credit Reference Bureau for defaulting on a Sh1000 loan he claims he never took.

Mr Peter Nduati, the founder of Resolution Group and the CEO of Centric Air, an airline ambulance company, expressed his frustration in a series of tweets after that he was listed on CRB for the loan he claims he never took.

Nduati said he discovered he was listed on CRB three weeks ago when his company Centric Air was finalising a facility they had applied for with I&M bank. The bank was unable to give him the loan because CRB listed him.

According to Nduati, the bank could not disclose who had listed him and referred him to CRB. CRB informed him that the mobile lender had listed him because he defaulted on a loan of Sh1000 in December 2018.

The tycoon who also owns PineCreek Records tweeted he has never borrowed money from an app.

“First off, I have never borrowed from an app. Secondly, the number they gave me was not mine. I then was referred to Safaricom who said that they couldn’t disclose the owner of the number, but they confirmed it was not registered in my name,” he said.

Nduati stated that CRB told him only the mobile loan company could clear him and he had to write a dispute letter.

“The company kept insisting that the number was linked to my ID and I had borrowed Sh1000 and defaulted. I was now pretty tired of the run around, and they kept insisting. After back and forth. I received a call from CRB that they have cleared me and that it was an error. No further explanation but that transaction has brought my credit score to BB- or something like that which means I have a 40 per cent chance of defaulting” he revealed.

The tycoon said the company had messed his credit score and he has sued them for that.

“I am very particular in maintaining a good credit score because I use leverage for investing,” he said.

49 mobile loans apps

Central Bank of Kenya last month revealed that there are 49 mobile loans apps in Kenya. All they require to process a loan for a borrower is for the latter to grant them access to their Facebook accounts, text messages, and call logs.

With the ease of securing loans from mobile apps, many Kenyans have found their way into CRBs’ black books.

A new report by CBK shows that lenders and customers increased the use of credit sharing platforms by 88 per cent as the need for a positive credit record history becomes a critical component of job and loan applications.

The regulator noted that there were an additional 2.3 million credit report requests from lenders and customers between July 2017 and June last year, with commercial banks making the most requests.

Of the 4.9 million credit report requests made in June last year, up from 2.6 million in the same period in 2017, 94 per cent were by commercial banks.