President William Ruto has promised to have at least 4 million Kenyans negatively listed with credit reference bureaus (CRBs) freed by November 1, 2022.
Speaking at Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi County, during a briefing by Safaricom, NCBA Bank and Kenya Commercial Bank, Ruto insisted that CRBs should not be used to punish borrowers, but should instead be used to encourage financial discipline.
“I’m very happy that between four to five million Kenyans will, by beginning of November, be out of the CRB blacklist. This is very important because these Kenyans have been excluded from any formal borrowing and have been left at the mercies of shylocks that exploit them,” President Ruto said.
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“I want to commit that the government isn’t against credit listing. We support CRBs as a mechanism of instilling financial discipline in our financial sector but we don’t want credit listing to be an all-or-nothing engagement,” he added.
Ruto also promised to work with lenders to enable small-holder businesses to access credit at a single-digit interest rate.
“We will work with lenders to develop a financial product that will allow Mama Mbogas to access credit at a single-digit interest rate the same way big firms do. The Government commits to underwrite the risks that will come with it so that small enterprises can flourish and drive our growth,” Ruto said.
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Ruto also encouraged the lenders to inspire saving among their clientele, more than borrowing as witnessed in the current setting.
“Borrowing functions best when we have savings because you cannot borrow what you don’t have. We have continuously borrowed the savings of others and that is why we are becoming slaves to our lenders,” he explained.
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