A few days back we reported the introduction of video doctor consultation service by the jubilee insurance through SASAdoctor, today, Minet insurance brokerage firm has joined the bandwagon with a similar service. Customers on Minet insurance will now be able to get online live video medical consultation service right from their homes.

The move comes in the wake of covid-19 pandemic that’s restricted most Kenyans from movement to avoid further spread of the virus. Telemedicine solution is particularly a new area that insurers are exploiting the possibilities of technological advancements in bringing services to their customers.

Kenya’s current corona virus count as of this post stands at slightly over 200 people with barely over 10 people having succumbed to the virus. The government directed Kenyan’s to exercise social distancing as the virus is mainly transmitted from infected people, or objects when they come in contact with those that do not have.

Speaking on the launch of the SASAdoctor service, Minet Kenya Chief Executive Officer Sammy Muthui said the telemedicine solution would provide an ideal means for the insurer to offer certain types of patient care to its employees and clients during this period of Coronavirus pandemic. He also added the insurer was hopeful that services offered will play a vital role in preventing the spread of novel Coronavirus, since SASAdoctor will tend to the patients remotely to mitigate the risk of transmission.

On top of the above benefits, customers are guaranteed to access online doctors at a highly discounted consultation fee, thus conserving member benefits for longer Muthui added.

Through the development, Minet employees and selected clients will have access to qualified medical specialists remotely, thereby minimizing traffic to healthcare centres and other medical facilities. SASA doctor service is available to patients at any given time of the day with designated pharmacies and follow-ups for members with chronic conditions.

For medical issues that require blood samples taken, there will be designated laboratory sample collection points with concierge services and medication at discounted rates of 15 percent to 25 percent off retail prices, delivered to the homes of the patients.

Among the ailments that will be treated through the virtual clinic include gastrointestinal infections, depression, and anxiety, menstrual problems, STIs, chronic conditions like diabetes & high blood pressure, colds and coughs as well as skin and eye infections.

Last week Safaricom announced an outage that affected a section of its Home Fibre customers. In the announcement, Safaricom acknowledged the service outage saying their engineers were already on the site working on a solution.

“We are currently experiencing a service outage affecting a section of Home Fibre customers. Our engineers are working to restore services as soon as possible and we are sorry for any inconvenience caused,” Safaricom tweeted.

Following the outage, Safaricom is reimbursing its customers as we’ve learnt through a text message.

Some of the home fibre users had complained to have been experiencing downtime since Tuesday evening last week. It’s not clear when the service was back operational in all areas but by the following day most of them were back online.

Kenyans have resorted to working from home, heeding the government’s call for social distancing in the wake of corona virus pandemic. For those within Nairobi in areas covered by unlimited internet such as Safaricom, Zuku, JTL, Liquid Telcom had opted to utilize their services and the general internet consumption has been exceptionally huge.

Customers affected by the outage having been receiving below text message;

“Dear Customer, we deeply apologise for the inconvenience caused by our fibre service intermittency. Dial *400*1# to redeem your compensation on the next renewal.”

Some customers have reported to receive compensation of 30 percent, deductible from there next renewal billing amount.

After having dealt a blow with the new central bank of Kenya regulations, popular loan offering apps in Kenya are responding in kind. Borrowers are being outrightly being denied loans and those with existing loans are getting more than a dozen text messages or calls to pay up. Some of these texts are really troubling as some lenders are using the CRB threat or notifying borrowers their intent to forward details to debt collectors.

If you’ve been using these apps, there’s almost certain probability you won’t be issued another loan once you pay the current one despite their texts advising otherwise. The issuance of instant loans has ended, and the likes of Tala say they’re now focusing on small businesses instead. This follows the new regulations imposed by the Kenya’s financial regulator which denies unregulated lenders access to the CRB.

Without access to the credit reference bureaus, these lending apps are practically handicapped as most borrowers find the CRB blacklisting as their main motivation to pay up. Most financial institution in the country ranging from banks, saccos and credit societies rely on information from the refence bureaus to come up with a credit score before issuing them with loans.  

In response to the CBK, the Digital Lenders Association of Kenya (DLAK) has noted that the loan granting process will become lengthy consequently limiting the number of successful applications. The association has also indicated that mobile lenders will be forced to ask clients to send them bank and M-PESA statements in order to validate information on their source and level of income.

Since the latest directives from the CBK will consequently cut down on the number of individuals listed as defaulters, the process will become ambiguous in monitoring the creditworthiness of applicants as before.

DLAK chairman Robert Masinde said the process will now be longer as a result of these restrictions. Although they’ve come up with an automated integrated information system It’s quite a step back in terms of processing, he added.

Some of the loan apps that have been barred from accessing Credit Reference Bureaus include;

As the current corona virus pandemic takes an unprecedented toll on Kenyan businesses, several firms have gone out of their way to devise new measures to offers services to their customers without having them physically visit their offices. Credit bank has joined the bandwagon with its virtual video conferencing applications services utilizing applications such as zoom and skype to enable its clientele continue accessing the bank’s services in the wake of the pandemic.

Speaking on the new development, credit bank’s Executive Officer- Strategy and Business Development Eric Nyachae said that customers who wished to bank cheques can get in touch with the bank’s relationship managers via the application.

He also added that the newly launched Clearing Solutions would allow corporate clients access the banks services without worrying about coming to the bank, instead, they can now process their cheques from the comfort of their premises as well as make all electronic transfers including paying their staff.

The executive officer in charge of strategy and business development also revealed that the financial institution had enhanced its online platform services by providing free online money transfers services that should enhance delivery of services including limits on their mobile banking platform.

During the current pandemic, Kenyans are advised to make minimal movements and exercise social distancing, therefore the credit bank’s initiative couldn’t have come a time better than now. With these new initiatives, corporate clients can achieve a higher Straight-Through-Processing (STP), real time visibility and higher levels of efficiency from payment initiation through to back-end processing.

In addition, credit bank has further put measures to cushion small medium traders during this period by introducing reduced transaction costs on digital platforms and free transactions on PesaLink.

In a gazette notice regarding new regulations on the credit reference bureaus, the central bank of Kenya has effectively denied popular loan apps access and thereby handicapping their ability to report loan defaulters. Kenyans have suffered immensely on these apps mainly found on the Google’s play store where a small amount of loan such as less than Ksh 1,000 could have them blacklisted affecting their credit score.  

In addition, most have been known to charge unscrupulous amounts in the name of daily interest just after the loan period expires. This has really weighed most Kenyans down especially during this difficult period of Covid-19 pandemic. These loan apps have become so popular on android phones, currently not available on iPhones due to Apple’s strict nature on privacy. Users could easily secure a loan probably repayable after just 15 days failure to which they’d be forwarded to reference bureaus or attract stiff interests each day their loan remained unpaid.

The banking sector regulator provided guidelines through which licensing and supervision of Credit Reference Bureaus (CRBs) is done. In addition, these regulations provide a framework for the exchange of borrowers’ credit information between commercial banks, microfinance banks, Savings and Credit Societies (SACCOs), other credit information providers approved by CBK, and CRBs.

According to the CBK, these regulations have been born from a consultative process that started in 2018, and are intended to strengthen Kenya’s Credit Information Sharing System (CIS) that has been operational since 2010. In particular, they seek to enhance consumer protection for borrowers, expand the sources of information and ensure the sustainability of the CIS as a key tool to bridge the information gap about the borrower’s creditworthiness.

Main reforms introduced by these CRB Regulations include;

• To be listed in a reference bureau, a borrower must have borrowed a minimum threshold of Ksh.1,000. Consequently, borrower’s information regarding non-performing loans of less than Ksh.1,000 will therefore not be submitted to CRBs, and borrowers that were previously “blacklisted” only for amounts less than Ksh.1,000 will be “delisted.”
• Secondly, first-time CRB clearance certificates will be provided by CRBs at no charge. This is particularly beneficial to Kenyan youth and graduates who are seeking employment.
• SACCO societies regulated by the Sacco Societies Regulatory Authority (SASRA) have now been included as authorized subscribers of credit data to CRBs. These SACCOs will now submit borrowers’ information to CRBs and also receive credit reports directly from them.

On top of the above regulations;

• The central bank of Kenya has withdrawn approvals granted to unregulated digital – mobile based as third party credit information providers to CRB. This according to CBK is after several complaints from the public over misuse of credit information by digital and credit only lenders.
• Negative credit information reporting for borrowers whose loans were performing previously but became non-performing as of April 1 has been suspended until September 30^th 2020.