Peter Macharia is the Managing Director of Jijenge Credit Limited, a non-deposit taking Microlending Institution with clients spread across Kenya, Sudan and Tanzania.
The lending company offers among other services logbook loans, salary check-off, bid bonds, asset financing and import duty finance among others.
Macharia established the company in 2014 after working in the banking sector for over two decades.
Here is his story as told by WoK.
In 2014, Macharia took an early retirement package, and quit his job as a Senior manager in one of the local banks.
The move marked the end of his 25 years stint in the banking sector.
Having worked in the sector for a long while, Macharia had identified some gaps that needed to be filled.
“I founded Jijenge Credit Ltd in 2014 with part of my voluntary early retirement package from the bank where I was working in a managerial position
“It was a handsome package because I was paid by the number of years worked. I had worked for over 25 years,” he said.
Some of the things that he had noted included time it took for a client to access a loan from financial services providers such as banks.
“I realised that when a client applies for a loan it takes weeks or months to be approved. Therefore, if you look at Jijenge Credit Ltd, the turnaround time is one hour on logbook loans,” Macharia added.
In an interview with The Standard, Macharia noted that although he experiences some challenges while starting off, he doesn’t regret quitting the banking job.
“I cannot regret having left the bank in a senior position. Tough times do not last but tough people do. That is what we are
“We are now in our ninth year. The beauty is that I was supported by the customers I used to handle at the ban,” he said.
While most of his company’s clients are small business, Macharia explained how they handle this clientele which is often classified as high-risk.
“Micro and small enterprises are risky but what I have done is that we invested heavily in technology. We have a very good credit appraisal system, an intelligent system, therefore it is able to know in seconds whether you are able to pay, by counterchecking a lot of traits,” he said.
This means both the money these businesses receive and the interest rate is determined by the credit appraisal system put in place.
He also spoke on the issue of digital lenders, some which are unlicensed by Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) flooding the market.
“The beauty is that most of those other digital lenders have been closed. CBK has cracked down on them. Currently, we are only 22 licensed digital providers in this country
“Any other digital lender out there risks closing or being taken to court. You are not supposed to operate a lending business without a license,” he said.
