Janet Kuteli is the founder and CEO of Fortune Credit Limited, a Microfinance institution catalysing economic empowerment of the rural population through appropriate savings, credit and insurance services.
She founded the company in 2014 after quitting a promising job in the banking industry.
The company offers among other services working capital, green financing products, bodaboda, agribusiness and education loans.
Here is Kuteli’s story as told by WoK.
In 2014, Kuteli quit a managerial job at a leading bank to establish Fortune Credit Limited to help people who cannot access mainstream banking services.
In an interview with Nation, she noted that resigning from her job was not an issue as she had well-defined structures for entrepreneurship.
“Having acquired enough expertise and experience I was sure I would pull it off,” she stated.
After setting up the microfinance institution, Kuteli said their first product was bodaboda loans which turned out to be a massive success.
The company issues loans to riders using M-PESA statements.
“I had done my research and realized that a good number of them were riding other people’s motorcycles and paid on average Ksh 500 daily.
“Giving them an access to a motorbike as an income generating asset, which then becomes a collateral and paying the Ksh 500 towards owning the motorbike would work well,” she explained.
The business was running smoothly but three months later, the company ran out of money to lend to new clients but she was lucky to have a business partner who chipped in.
Kuteli had used her entire savings amounting to Ksh 10 million to start the business.
Years down the line, she explained that entrepreneurs don’t need millions to start a lending business like Fortune Credit Limited.
“You can start with whatever little money you have but you need to have done proper research and know how much you really need to start the programme,” she told Nation.
Due to existence of rogue riders within the bodaboda industry, Kuteli noted that they only lend money to operators in formalised groups.
“It was easier to work with their leaders who knew the members’ credibility with their own mechanisms of repossession in case of default,” she stated.
Fortune Credit Limited has six branches countrywide and 85 staff members, serving clients from 24 countries.
Since 2014, the company has served over 50,000 customers but they are targeting at least 5 million customers in Kenya.
“Growth has happened over the past two years because we understood the market pretty well and knowing the challenges small businesses in Kenya go through, it was easy for us to move forward in partnerships with organizations that believed in our dreams and pumped in capitals,” Kuteli noted.
