Kenyan digital-lender credit scoring (M-Shwari, Tala, Branch and others)

entry · p2026-09-06-223 · validated

On average, there are 10 million unique borrowers who have at least one digital loan annually

tech: kenya-digital-credit-scoring
passes the definition as: credit scores fit to mobile-money, handset and behavioural data, deciding who gets a loan and reporting defaults to credit bureaus
from: 2016
region: other:Kenya
domain: access
side: benefit
people: 10,000,000 people taking at least one digital loan a year (2023)
effect: 270,000,000 loans (2023) — about 270 million new digital loans worth KShs 1,512 billion issued over 2019-2023, against 7.8 million non-digital loans - credit reaching ten times as many people as the branch-underwritten market
reversible: yes
who holds the switch: owner:the digital lenders
attribution: scale
source kind: primary
the statistic: FSD Kenya / CIS Kenya / Creditinfo study of January 2019 to December 2023: on average 10 million unique borrowers a year have at least one digital loan against 1 million for non-digital loans; approximately 270 million new digital loans valued at KShs 1,512 billion were issued over the five years.
source: https://www.fsdkenya.org/blogs-publications/fsd-kenya-cis-kenya-and-creditinfo-crb-launch-the-findings-of-a-study-on-kenyas-credit-market-landscape/
proposed by: researcher (opus), brief 2026-09-06 second harvest, china-india-africa-latam
received: 2026-09-06T10:20:12-04:00
harvest report: impacts/harvest/2026-09-06-china-india-africa-latam.md

Rulings, in order

2026-09-06T10:21:26-04:00 · validatorpass — quote found on the fetched page (exact match; HTTP 200 text/html; charset=UTF-8)
2026-09-06T10:21:26-04:00 · sessionseverity — credit reaching ten million borrowers a year, ten times the branch-underwritten market

The proposal as it arrived (JSON)

{
 "id": "p2026-09-06-223",
 "received": "2026-09-06T10:20:12-04:00",
 "proposer": "researcher (opus), brief 2026-09-06 second harvest, china-india-africa-latam",
 "kind": "entry",
 "sha": "8c0d606c585d4306",
 "data": {
  "kind": "entry",
  "tech": "kenya-digital-credit-scoring",
  "tech_name": "Kenyan digital-lender credit scoring (M-Shwari, Tala, Branch and others)",
  "definition": "credit scores fit to mobile-money, handset and behavioural data, deciding who gets a loan and reporting defaults to credit bureaus",
  "from": "2016",
  "region": "other:Kenya",
  "domain": "access",
  "side": "benefit",
  "people": {
   "n": 10000000,
   "unit": "people taking at least one digital loan a year",
   "date": "2023"
  },
  "effect": {
   "n": 270000000,
   "unit": "loans",
   "date": "2023",
   "what": "about 270 million new digital loans worth KShs 1,512 billion issued over 2019-2023, against 7.8 million non-digital loans - credit reaching ten times as many people as the branch-underwritten market"
  },
  "reversible": true,
  "switch": "owner:the digital lenders",
  "statistic": "FSD Kenya / CIS Kenya / Creditinfo study of January 2019 to December 2023: on average 10 million unique borrowers a year have at least one digital loan against 1 million for non-digital loans; approximately 270 million new digital loans valued at KShs 1,512 billion were issued over the five years.",
  "source": "https://www.fsdkenya.org/blogs-publications/fsd-kenya-cis-kenya-and-creditinfo-crb-launch-the-findings-of-a-study-on-kenyas-credit-market-landscape/",
  "quote": "On average, there are 10 million unique borrowers who have at least one digital loan annually",
  "attribution": "scale",
  "source_kind": "primary"
 },
 "from_file": "impacts/harvest/2026-09-06-china-india-africa-latam.md"
}