Utambuzi, a personal finance management product that leverages Machine Learning (ML) to track income, expenses and plan budgets while providing insights on financial behaviour, has launched in Kenya.
Translating to ‘insights’ or ‘diagnosis’ in Swahili, Utambuzi users have access to onboarded, verified and credible lenders, for loan uses that range from student loans, refinancing loans, personal loans, home loans, mortgage refinancing and insurance.
With a platform that offers users easy access to verified lenders, and provides lenders with full information into a borrower’s affordability with over 80 Artificial Intelligence-powered variables that prove creditworthiness, Utambuzi has reduced the institutional void of information asymmetry that has plagued the credit market and increased access to credit facilities for borrowers in Kenya.
Michael Collins, Periculum’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer, said: “Africa needs domestic credit to stimulate real economic growth. This is not only bank-to-business credit but it can also be personalised lending for short-term credit as well as buy now, pay-later merchants.“The absence of tech-enabled credit assessment infrastructure has limited the quality and quantity of lending and may be behind the risk premiums borrowers have to pay, and the harassment practised by predatory lenders within the continent. The lenders and borrowers, on both sides, have to resolve information asymmetry; lenders want to assess creditworthiness and borrowers want credit from credible, reputable lenders.”
