Touch and tech in African consumer loans, with Michiel le Roux (Unifi Credit)
How to Lend Money to Strangers
Brendan le Grange
4.9 • 43 Ratings
🗓️ 10 March 2022
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Not every hot new name in consumer lending is some smartphone-native app underpinned by a quiver of machine learning algorithms. But also, not every hot new name in consumer lending is actually making a profit.
This is why Michiel le Roux, Group CEO of Unifi Credit is taking on sub-Saharan Africa with a ‘touch and tech’ approach. A good ol’ fashioned branch network provides a route into the system for consumers, but as data is generated limits grow and transactions can move fully digital - a best of both worlds approach that doesn’t leave the less tech-savvy behind.
In this episode, we chat about growing a continent-wide lending business out of Zambia, and building a scalable business off the back of better data management.
The best place to find out more about Michiel and Unifi Credit is their homepage (www.unifi.credit) - and as mentioned, they’re growing, so if you’re interested in working with them that’s here.
And, hey, if you’re in South Africa and you’re looking for a multi-asset, multi-strategy manager of alternative investment funds and co-investment platforms have a look at www.westbrooke.co.za (and tell Duncan I sent you 🤣)
You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), while you can find my action-adventure novels on Amazon, some versions even for free.
If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.
Regards,
Brendan
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | in these informal and unregulated markets, people have been bitten so many times by whether |
| 0:04.4 | it's unfair charges or whether it's refunds that don't get paid out or just hidden fees |
| 0:09.4 | and these sort of things. So it takes a while for the clients to come and understand our |
| 0:14.2 | product, but once they do, people really have loyalty to us because of us favouring them in our |
| 0:20.0 | decision and designing the process to favour the client and it works. |
| 0:23.4 | I have previously talked about how the first wave of African Fintech was largely about finding |
| 0:35.8 | innovative ways to leverage feature-vonetworks to provide very basic banking services. |
| 0:42.2 | These services were locally impactful, but they largely solved problems inherent to developing |
| 0:47.7 | markets, problems of infrastructure. Now, this more recent wave of African Fintech is in many ways |
| 0:54.4 | more exciting. Because it leverages smartphones, it can provide richer services and those services |
| 1:00.3 | are more exportable to the rest of the world. However, there is a risk that we can create a digital |
| 1:06.4 | divide of sorts where all the innovation moves to channels that leave less sophisticated, less |
| 1:12.7 | connected consumers behind, which is why I love the branch to digital strategy pursued by Unified |
| 1:18.4 | Credit, who's CEO, Mahil LaRouh is with me today. Plus, they actually target profitability, |
| 1:23.7 | which can feel almost subversive these days. Welcome to How To Laying Money to Strangers with branded |
| 1:29.5 | language. Mahil, welcome to the show. It's a pleasure to be chatting to you again after all these |
| 1:45.1 | years. I think the first time we met, I was sitting with your brother in a land cruiser, |
| 1:50.4 | Floorboard Deep in the River, watching you as the younger brother get volunteered to swim under |
| 1:55.9 | what we could only guess, I think, was the lowest strand of an electric fence. So you could run |
| 2:01.3 | back to camp and fetch the car with your working battery. Since those care three days, we've all |
| 2:05.9 | grown up a bit. You went on to study, spent some years in private equity and now are sitting as |
| 2:11.6 | group CEO of Unified Credit. Before we talk about Unified Credit and what you're doing to make |
... |
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