If any group member has an overdue balance, all new disbursements to everyone in the group stop immediately. However, if members of the group meet their repayment schedules, KWFT guarantees automatically bigger loans after the old credit is paid. This gives clients an opportunity to plan ahead for the development of their small businesses. At head office, activities are now modernized and decentralized.
New KWFT officers are recruited from top level college and university graduates and are paid competitive salaries. Computer and accounting systems have been modernised, and the Trust now has a well-operating internal audit function. Previously, KWFT field officers met with client groups every week. Now, groups are given an initial intensive training period of months. After that, they meet with KWFT field officers only once a month.
This has allowed field officers to greatly expand the number of clients and outstanding loans they can handle. Field officers can reach large sections of rural Kenya by using motorbikes to cover a radius of 25 kilometres from each branch. Higher staff efficiency has made it possible to develop financially sustainable operations, even in rural areas. KWFT has also improved its relationship with clients, intensifying its client training efforts and handing over more power to groups to manage their own affairs.
As a result, relations between clients and staff tend to be very good. At the same time that KWFT was expanding its rural operations, the trust began looking beyond donor grants for funding. At the end of , this figure was about 50 per cent. These include loans for school fees, solar panels, water tanks, cooking gas equipment and community phone lines, as well as voluntary life insurance.
Looking ahead, KWFT plans to expand into two new regions in the next year. This would require the number of KWFT staff to grow to about from at present. KWFT also plans to transform itself into more of a full service financial institution, offering clients savings accounts, as well as loans.
The experience of KWFT shows that calculated risks can pay off when they are backed up by thorough planning. The remarkable success may well serve as a model for similar projects elsewhere in Africa. Funding for KWFT has come under four different phases.
It was designed to help KWFT establish operations in two districts in the Coast Province and provide credit through groups to rural women forming small-scale businesses. It found that there were significant improvements in the economic and social conditions in the households of KWFT clients. As a result, a fourth grant of EUR 1. Publicador de contenidos.
How the Kenya Women Finance Trust became a model lender 09 mayo A troubled history As its name suggests, the Kenya Women Finance Trust is a microfinance institution established by Kenyan women and offering services only to low-income Kenyan women. After the financial literacy training and uptake of the loans, the women hold monthly meetings with the KWFT officers where they walk the financial journey bringing the financial services at the their doorstep providing convenience and save time and money.
Sign In Create account. Key highlights. Financial literacy is important to women entrepreneurs as it provides them with knowledge on: valuing money; spending it; keeping track on spending through updated records; saving for the future and; investing in productive and sustainable activities. Read more What is the situation in Kenya? Existing statistics show that lack of financial illiteracy among women: Remains a major hindrance to their economic empowerment. Makes it hard for women to navigate and use financial services, and Leads to inappropriate financial decisions Exposes women to added risk by borrowing from informal sources, saving too little, and failing to access appropriate financial services.
About KWFT Kenya Women Microfinance Bank was founded in by a group of professional women from different professions who were driven by the passion of establishing a Financial Institution that would be committed to exclusively address the financial and non-financial needs of the women in Kenya. Read more Financial Literacy Programme KWFT initiated a group lending product where women with no collateral can guarantee each other loans, thus opening avenues for them to access financing.
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