The financial landscape has over the years evolved in Kenya, and at the forefront of this transformation is Tala. This financial institution has reached a significant milestone in its journey.
Metropol, a leader in credit reporting and data services, extended its heartfelt congratulations to Tala for its remarkable achievement in market segmentation and service offerings tailored to meet borrowers’ needs at Tala’s 10th-anniversary fete in Nairobi on June 20, 2024.
Metropol CEO Gideon Kipyakwai was present at the fete and thanked Kenya’s largest digital credit providers for having leveraged data and Credit Reference Bureau (CRB) as soft collateral, successfully dismantling the traditional barriers to credit that many Kenyans faced.
In his speech, Kipyakwai said;
On behalf of the Metropol team, I extend our heartfelt congratulations on your remarkable milestone. We are delighted to celebrate this achievement with you.
I note that Tala’s success is rooted in great market segmentation and excellent offerings that meet borrowers’ needs. The genius in your segmentation is evident, particularly in your choice of markets—Kenya, the Philippines, India, and Mexico. Reflecting on my time living in the West Coast of the United States, I recall the notably hardworking nature of individuals from these countries. I applaud Tala for recognizing that innate nature of Kenyans.
As you celebrate bridging the gap in financial inclusion, we are honored to partner with you in your mission to expand access through a robust ecosystem that is data-driven and customer centric. Over the past decade, by utilizing data and CRB information as soft collateral, Tala has successfully removed the collateral barriers that previously existed in Kenya.
As the bureau with the largest number of data sources and the most extensive collection of borrower profiles, encompassing a wide variety of records the largest pool of financial and non-financial credit institutions, we are privileged to be your chosen data provider.
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We commend your efforts in promoting gender inclusion. A pertinent question that lingers is the distribution of accessed funds. We are open to partnering with you to track and identify the “real” borrowers.
This challenge is best addressed through data, for which we are the go-to partner. In your next frontier, it is crucial for you to understanding the beneficiaries of borrowings and the key decision-makers to your products. For instance, during my banking career, I often observed long queues of men in banking halls and at ATMs on paydays. While the men queued to withdraw the money, I saw many women and children waiting nearby for the men.
Clearly, the men were channels and distribution of the money to the ultimate beneficiaries was going to happen in a moment. This raises the question: are men or women borrowing on behalf of the other gender? Addressing this gender access question through data is essential, and we are happy to be onboard.
Once again, congratulations on this outstanding achievement. We look forward to many more years of your continued success.
