The licenced shylocks of Kenya

They have flooded the kenyan market like never before,they have creatively branded posters which have bright colors and all sorts of eye catching words. "Cash in 24 hours" one poster shouts "check-off loans of upto 1million in 24 hours" another one interjects,"cash in 18 hours" another one appeals to its customers. These are the micro-finance institutions of Kenya, they have one target market, that is civil servants and all government employees. They claim to solve emergency financial woes of civil servants and yet it is not true.

A normal bank loan retails at an interest rate of between 12-18% per annum,a sacco loan also retails at 1% per month which translates to 12% per annum and on the contrary these micro-finance institutions charge between 2-5% per month which translates to a whooping 24-60% per month which is even higher than the black market rates of shylocks which range between 20-40%. In essence these micro-finance institutions siphon alot of money from the pockets of government employees by claiming that they do not require alot of documentation and that they only require a payslip,national identity card and a colored passport photo of a customer which are the basic items that most government employees have at hand.

Rose, a teacher in one of the public primary schools in Nairobi says that she cannot concentrate in her place of work because of financial stress caused by a loan from one of these institutions. She further says that she took a loan of Ksh100,000 with one of the institutions which was charging an interest rate of 3.97% per month for 48 months which adds upto Ksh290,560 which is almost three times of what she borrowed. Another government employee Omari ,36, a driver in one of the government ministries laments that he cleared paying a loan of Ksh50,000 with one the institutions but  deductions were still being effected from his salary an issue that made him financially overburdened,and although the deductions stopped after six months he has never received any refund from the concerned institution which amounted to Ksh18,000.