CHAPTER 2 / Access to finance
60%
of Kenya still doesn’t have access to financial services
Beyond operational efficiency, Cameron and his team have found that the Musoni system has huge security benefits for the microfinance officers working in the field. “At one of the organisations we now work with... the senior accountant was tragically murdered during a robbery in the head office. He was murdered while he was taking the day’s repayments and transferring them from the safe into a cash deposit box to take to the bank,” Cameron recalls. “This organisation then started using the Musoni system to reduce the risk to their personnel. They no longer have cash being handled by members of the organisation or stored in their head office... It’s incredibly satisfying — to know that we can improve the safety of people operating in these areas.” All of this speaks to the impact Musoni is having on microfinance organisations themselves — what about the rural clients they are actually trying to serve? The improvement in speed of the transactions is tremendous. “Traditionally, a loan can take a couple of weeks to be processed by a branch,” Cameron explains. “By contrast, when you’re using mobile money, the payment can get sent out one or two hours after the loan application is received. Moreover, Musoni has found that the time flexibility of mobile access has been pivotal for rural populations, who no longer need to disrupt their day to do their finances. So what’s the bottom line? Musoni improves organisational efficiency, personnel safety, and clients’ ease and satisfaction with the microfinance system. “We get phone calls from clients saying, ‘Thank you very much. We weren’t expecting to get the funds this quickly. This has never happened before’.” If that is not a hallmark of success, I’m not sure what is...”
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BUSINESS MODEL “We have deliberately structured our pricing so that it is linked to the number of clients the organisation works with so that there is very low barrier to entry.” Despite the tremendous successes, Musoni is still working on becoming financially sustainable. “We have only been operating for about 18 months now, and we charge very low license fees,” Cameron shares. “It’s very, very cheap to use our software and, because of that, we need large numbers of organisations in order to become sustainable.” Musoni has structured its pricing so that it has a very diverse client base. “We work with some organisations that have 25,000 clients and are looking for a more efficient way to manage their operations. At the same time, we also work with complete startups,” Cameron adds. “We’ve deliberately structured our pricing so that it’s linked to the number of clients the organisation works with so that there is a very low barrier to entry.” With such a breadth of clientele, Musoni is set to reach profitability by the end of the year. “It’s just a case of bringing more MFIs on board, bringing more financial organisations on board, expanding into new markets and, hopefully, working with some larger international organisations as well,” Cameron describes. “We’re on the right track.” WHAT’S NEXT “We would like to place more power or more control directly into the hands, literally into the fingertips, of the clients themselves.” “We are very keen to expand,” Cameron says. “We are looking at expanding both in our