{"id":2175,"date":"2023-03-13T18:07:18","date_gmt":"2023-03-13T18:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kenyatopstories.co.ke\/?p=2175"},"modified":"2023-03-13T18:07:18","modified_gmt":"2023-03-13T18:07:18","slug":"appetite-for-digital-credit-surges-as-inflation-pushes-kenyans-to-borrow-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kenyatopstories.co.ke\/index.php\/2023\/03\/13\/appetite-for-digital-credit-surges-as-inflation-pushes-kenyans-to-borrow-more\/","title":{"rendered":"APPETITE FOR DIGITAL CREDIT SURGES AS INFLATION PUSHES KENYANS TO BORROW MORE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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by Ronald Njoroge <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half of Kenyan consumers are borrowing more
compared to six months ago with incidences of those using more than three digital
lenders on the rise. According to Tala\u2019s 2023 MoneyMarch \u201cState of the Economy\u201d
report, this is attributed to fewer full-time jobs and declined alternative sources of income
forcing consumers to borrow in order to pay for living expenses in the face of growing
inflation.
Borrowing for business purposes remained the top reason for taking a loan as 67% of
respondents indicated that they borrowed to meet business expenses and add stock.
Compared to 2022, this was a slight drop from last year\u2019s 78% as Kenyans shift focus to
meeting basic needs such as school fees, utility bills, medical care, rent and public
transport amid soaring cost of living.
\u201cCompared to 2022, Kenyans are cutting down on spending and saving more in a bid to
curb the impact of increasing inflation in their daily lives. More generally, we are also
seeing Kenyans borrowing more, and it is fascinating to note that over the last six months
consumers have channeled more of their loans to their savings such as \u2018Chama\u2019
contributions. It appears that customers are borrowing from digital lenders to help keep
pace with their group contributions, underlying the need for access to affordable credit
for continued financial independence during challenging economic times \u201d said Teddy
Kahiro, Senior User Research manager at Tala while presenting findings to media and
industry stakeholders.
While speaking on spending habits, Teddy said that the report presented a unique
perspective on what respondents were spending on. They revealed that they spent 25%
of their earnings in savings with chamas, saccos or fixed deposit accounts, 22% on
personal expenses, 23% on utility bills and a distant 15% on emergencies.
On financial literacy, over half of surveyed customers who said that they were
experiencing increased expenditures over the last six months, want more guidance on
creating a budget to manage expenses. \u201cThis is a contrast from last year where
consumers wanted guidance on how to start\/grow businesses and save effectively\u201d
noted Mr. Kahiro. \u201cThe hypothesis here could be that people are holding onto money
rather than investing it in a new business amidst the ongoing economic crunch\u201d
concluded Teddy.
\u201cEmpowering our customers with education on how to manage their finances has always
been a key objective for Tala. We believe financial resilience among the underserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Ronald Njoroge Half of Kenyan consumers are borrowing morecompared to six months ago with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenyatopstories.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenyatopstories.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenyatopstories.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenyatopstories.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenyatopstories.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2175"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kenyatopstories.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2177,"href":"https:\/\/kenyatopstories.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175\/revisions\/2177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenyatopstories.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenyatopstories.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenyatopstories.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}