NAIROBI, Kenya
Consumer finance company, AFB, today opened a new office in Nairobi in a Ksh 250 million capital investment that includes the launch of a retail credit card. This brings the number of AFB offices across Africa to four with others in Lusaka, Accra and Cape Town. The card allows customers to spread the cost of their purchase into affordable monthly installments over a period of six months.
This offers customers a convenient and flexible way to get instant access to the credit. AFB expects to build a debtors book of between $17 million and $20 million in the first year of operation, which will be financed through a combination of equity and debt. They hope to source majority of this debt over time through the local Kenyan market.
Mr Karl Westvig, the Chief Executive Officer said, “We have been eyeing the Kenyan market for a long time after our research indicated Kenya as one of the African countries with well developed financial and retail infrastructures. Apart from being a high growth-market Kenya is part of a region that is experiencing rapid improvements in income levels and infrastructure, has an abundance of well-educated and quality staff and offers a huge promise of continued growth for many organizations as a consumer market.”
He said AFB has been piloting the product for the past six months and the uptake has been good in terms of the level of individual subscriptions and signing of retail partnership. “We will diversify out of Nairobi to support our retail partners in areas where there is sufficient formal retail presence to support a business operations,” he said. They are currently testing a range of credit limits ranging between Ksh 8,000 and Ksh 25,000.
They have also started testing loans products and plan to grow this portfolio over time as they build up their knowledge of the loan market. To apply for an AFB card, one has to be 18 years and above, has a regular source of income. A consumer can apply for the card in any of the participating retailer partner stores. The repayment is made through any of the participating retails outlets or through M-Pesa.
