Borrow Money From These Apps at your own Risk| The Digital Lenders Association of Kenya Has Announced

With the influx of money lending Apps, the association of Lenders of Kenya has send a message warning Kenyans against borrowing or going for soft loans from some Apps. This is after these mobile money lending Apps were found bridging customer privacy policies leading to uproar by many Kenyans who have fallen victims.

The DLAK has singled out Opesa and Okash as some of the money lending Apps that are invading customer privacy policy. These Apps reportedly resorted to shaming their borrowers in public over delayed payments and default.

The DLAK said that Opesa and Okash have been invading customer privacy which is against the Kenyan data protection laws. “Not only does this behavior go against Kenyan data protection laws, but it reeks of indignity. By reaching out to a customer’s contact list, Opesa and Okash rob the individual of basic dignity and consumer rights,” DLAK said in a statement.

Top 10 Best Mobile Money Loan Apps In Kenya

The two mobile lenders and many more others have apparently been fishing customers’ contacts. Once a borrower fails to pay up, they start calling people in the contact list to tell them about the borrower’s default in a bid to get repaid.  “This can have long term effects on their psychological well-being and damage relations that may have taken years to build,” Robert Masinde, the chairperson of the DLAK association said.

The other Apps in the Market that are also known to use the same strategies are Kashway and Zash Loan among others.

Owing to the current Covid 19 pandemic, a number digital money lending Apps like Tala suspended lending due to fears that borrowers may be unable to repay back the loans.

Ballooning List Of Defaulters

Central bank of Kenya had in April this year ordered lenders to stop listing borrowers with the Credit Reference Bureaus (CRB). The order directed that Kenyans with loans of less than Ksh.1000, be de listed from the CRB.

These orders was as a results of CRB reporting a sharp increase in the number of defaulter that had hit 3.2 million Kenyans, a sharp jump from the 2.7 Kenyans who had been listed by CRB last year. The jump represents 12% rise in non-performing loans in Kenya from 9.5% that had been recorded in 2017.

Kenyans have been cautioned against taking loans from  Apps without reading their terms and conditions.

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