Equity Bank raises by 15 times the amount customers can borrow through phone
Equity Bank chief executive officer James Mwangi. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
Equity customer can now borrow Sh3 million compared to the previous Sh200,000 with the maximum repayment period now stretched from a month to 12 months.
The new product is dubbed “Eazzy Plus Loan” and the bank said it was in response to demand by its Equitel customers.
Equity Bank has raised by 15 times the amount customers can borrow through the Equitel mobile banking, highlighting the growing importance of the platform to Kenya’s largest lender by client base.
Customer can now borrow Sh3 million compared to the previous Sh200,000 with the maximum repayment period now stretched from a month to 12 months.
The new product is dubbed “Eazzy Plus Loan” and the bank said it was in response to demand by its Equitel customers.
“We believe that in the next few years Equitel will do five more times the number of transactions of all other channels put together,” said Equity Group chief executive James Mwangi.
In 2015 Equitel’s 1.7 million customers transacted a total of Sh151 billion while the value of Equitel loans stood at Sh8.5 billion, according to the lender.
Mr Mwangi said the increased use of Equitel to access credit “will benefit users since the loan repayment rate through the mobile platform is better than other channels”.
“We can significantly reduce the cost of borrowing for our customers,” he said.
Equitel transaction platform was unveiled in August last year with the bank noting that I.9 million customers used it to apply for loans through phones compared to 533,000 who applied physically.
In 2015, its ATM Transactions reduced by 6 per cent to 30.4 million transactions.
Micro and savings loan products by banks in the country have gained huge popularity with several other lenders reporting similarly phenomenal growth.
KCB Group chief executive Joshua Oigara recently said mobile and agency banking are driving most of the transaction volumes with about 70 per cent of transactions driven by mobile.
“If you talk about ten transactions we have seven of the transactions in there comprised of mobile and agency banking,” he said.
Mr Oigara said KCB Group and Safaricom’s mobile banking product (KCB M-Pesa) launched in March has issued loans worth Sh7 billion in 10 months.
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