Kenyan Digital Finance platform Jisort has launched multiple lenders services with the aim of running credit facilities.
One of the leading micro-lending marketplace platforms in Kenya, Jisort was founded in August 2016 and released a beta (Core-banking platform) in January 2017.
Speaking in an interview with Innovation Village, Co-Founder, David Murimi revealed the motivation behind the setting up of Jisort, he said, “Growing up in low-income setup, I am always eager on things that improve the welfare of my folks. The moment I visited Alibaba Group in Hangzhou, China through the Efounders fellowship by Jack Ma and UNCTAD, the vision was emboldened.
“I learned how Alipay and Ant Financial were changing lives in China through innovative credit scoring. I couldn’t wait to get home and redefine the vision.”
Jisort offers two unique services: Mobile lending and Jscore. On the former, the co-founder explained that it allows lenders to tap into cutting edge technology without any capital investment. Lenders can now launch mobile lending in 60 minutes. Jscore, on the other hand, is an innovative credit score that accurately reports on a borrower’s ability to pay a credit facility.
Speaking on how the startup works, Murimi said, “Jisort infrastructure has 3 main components: a core-banking platform, ewallet, and a credit scoring engine. Jisort performs identity check on all new borrowers, verified borrowers are later credit scored on more than 1000 data points using Telco and social data and assigned a Jscore.
“Jisort avails this anonymized data to lenders who lend them based on the Jscore. Funds are then disbursed instantly to the borrowers’ mobile money wallet like Mpesa or to Jisort ewallet (Woza).
“Jisort core-banking allows the lenders to manage their portfolio. It also allows payment for the credit facilities. However, a borrower can only have one credit facility at a time.”
As it regards business and traction, Murimi disclosed that Jisort is gaining traction while the platform is not profitable yet. He explained that Jisort Mobile Lending was launched in August 2018 and several lenders have joined the platform, more than $1m has been committed to lending.
In his words, “Jisort platform has over 100,000 users being served by multiple lenders and has a revenue-sharing agreement with lenders which is settled at the end of every month.”
Despite the traction the startup has enjoyed since launch, Murimi was quick to point out the challenges currently being encountered. He said, “Lenders are yet to embrace technology, some lenders are still insisting on semi-automation while Jisort is a fully automated platform.
“Also, the slow pace of integration with partners is a challenge; Jisort is integrated with Mpesa, banks, other mobile wallets, Credit Reference Bureaus among others. These integrations have taken forever to go live,” he lamented.
On achievements, the co-founder said that the startup is endowed with an efficient credit scoring engine powered by AI that is always getting better with data received. It has also achieved integration with key partners like banks, mobile money, CRBs, Telcos which has helped it expand its capabilities considerably.
The Microfinance lending platform though launched a few years ago already has its eyes set in the future. Jisort has recently added a peer to peer lending feature (lend a friend) that is becoming popular, while the prospect of expanding to Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Zambia, and other Africa countries is now real.
On the African startup ecosystem, Murimi said, “The African startup ecosystem is evolving to embrace resilience; people are quickly ditching the Silicon Valley Models to embrace what works in Africa.”
Commenting on the fast-evolving Kenya startup and tech ecosystem, he said, “Kenya is doing great especially in the fintech and logistic areas. If you want to confirm that look at the amount of money startups in Kenya have raised, it should be behind South Africa and probably Nigeria.”
On a final note, Murimi gave a piece of advice to young entrepreneurs out there, he said, “Get started now, with whatever you have, we didn’t have much when starting. We have learned along the way, we only got partnerships when we were already on the job.”
