E-Commerce platform Jumia Kenya is gearing up for the festive season on all fronts and its latest lending program is no exception.
Jumia has partnered with Berlin based start up Bitbond, the first global marketplace lending platform for small business loans to ensure success of the program.
Jumia Kenya MD Sam Chappatte told The Kenyan Wall Street the lending program will enable loan disbursements between Sh 100,000 – 500,000 to the small and medium businesses on its platform. According to Chappatte, vendors will be given loans pegged to their sales history on Jumia platform and they will use the loan as working capital. Under this alliance, the working capital will be offered to the merchants at interest rates of between 1% – 3% per month.
Jumia MD also noted that they have been testing this initiative for the last two months and currently more than 200 sellers are using the facility.
He also noted that going forward, they will use transaction data of its vendors to help them raise working capital through tie-ups with local banks and financial service firms.
This micro lending program is in addition to Jumia’s partnership with mobile based lender Branch which enables loans for sellers of up to Sh 30, 000 at 1.2% per month.
The program now comes less than a month of its festive sales season starting November 13 to December 13.
