Nairobi, Kenya, Sep 30 – Metropol, a credit management company now says six million Kenyans are currently blacklisted at the Credit Reference Bureau (CRB) for failing to pay their loans.
According to Metropol Corporation Managing Director Sammy Omukoko, a total of 19 million Kenyans are currently in the system.
Omukoko said that the defaulting population translates to 22 per cent while the population that is servicing their credit stands at 78 percent.
“You can see that fortunately, there are more people who are servicing their debts in this market than those who have gone into defaulting,” Omukoko said.
Metropol is one of the three licenced CRBs operating in the country alongside TransUnion and Creditinfo International.
Metropol is also licensed by the Central Bank of Kenya to provide Credit Reference Bureau (CRB) Services to ALL banks in Kenya.
“Our CRB services leverage full-file credit information sharing and alternative data sources from MFIs, SACCOs, HELB, Utilities, Mobile phone companies, and providers of goods and services on credit to help customers improve their access to finance and increase the credit providers’ capacity to lend profitably to more customers,” a statement posted at the organization’s website reads in part.
The organization also supports Credit providers in managing Credit Risk throughout the credit life cycle to increase efficiency and lower the risk of default and maximize profit.
The revelation by Metropol’s boss comes two days after President William Ruto announced that over 4 million Fuliza defaulters will be removed from the Credit Reference Bureau (CRB) and other blacklists from November this year.
Ruto made the announcement Wednesday when he met officials from Treasury, Central Bank, Safaricom, Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB), and NCBA.
Ruto said the lenders have now agreed to develop a new credit scoring system as opposed to blacklisting customers.
“I am very happy that between 4 to 5 million Kenyans will, by the beginning of November. be out of the CRB blacklist,” President Ruto stated. “This is very important because these Kenyans have been excluded from any formal borrowing and have been left at the mercies of shylocks that exploit them.”
President Ruto lauded the move saying it will give the listed Kenyans a fresh opportunity to access credit and put end to exploitation from what he described as “predatory lenders”
Anyone listed on CRB is barred from formal borrowing.
During his campaigns ahead of the August election, President Ruto had pledged to review credit listing to open up access to credit for people barred from borrowing over the negative listing.
Ruto said that he supports CRB as a method of instilling financial discipline amongst borrowers but must not criminalise customers.
“What we are asking is we don’t want credit listing to be an all or nothing, in or out engagement, we want credit listing to be a facility that gives everybody a chance to do their best in their own time,” he said.
The Head of State, however, proposed changing the credit scoring mechanism to give everybody a chance to access credit.
“Instead of blacklisting we can have a graduated mechanism that allocates rating on every citizen that is borrowing,” he said.
He added that listing of Kenyans has affected some of them in many ways including while seeking employment.
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