Denis Opudo
There is a high number of individuals and Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s) in Nigeria who are not able to get funds more so from commercial banks. The trend is still going up despite the fact that there is a growth of some credit programs to fill that gap. The lack of funding will always be a challenge to the growth and development of various Small and medium-sized enterprises and individuals hence hindering the economic progress in the country.
Kiakia has come out as one of those bodies that are working to solve the mess. Kiakia is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning startup dealing in customer service, credit recording and at the same time, it’s a Peer to Peer (P2P) lending platform. The company has launched one vital agent known as Mr. K which helps SME’s and working adults in accessing credit. The company has helped hundreds of people from 22 regions in Nigeria in obtaining and repaying credits worth millions of naira this is according to the Co-founder, Olajide Abiola who also serves in the capacity of Chief Data Scientists in the company.
The loan comes in the form of Nonperforming Loan (NPL) with a ratio of less than 2.3% which is maintained for more than 12 months courtesy of the company’s algorithm. Mr. K is amongst the most outstanding financial services virtual assistant in Nigeria. The platform will use perceptive and involvement interface to engage users, hence offering them a smooth experience. The fact that Mr. K is as innovative as such; it does not guarantee it to be a new idea. Back in 2015 and 2016 both Aella Credit and Paylater developed the same challenge as Kiakia.
What makes Kiakia different from the rest startups is that its main focus is on the unbanked Nigerian population and this is in line with the recently launched Mr. K offers it an edge over the rest. Its believed that Nigeria has the largest number of the unbanked population in the continent with 47% of its total population unbanked. Kiakia is only using Nigeria as a watermark of which if it succeeds to serve the 47% people in Nigeria successfully, it will, later on, launch the product to the rest of Africa which also suffers the same fate as Nigeria.
