NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, July 5, 2005

Suddenly, in the middle of something approaching squalor to rich world eyes, here’s a supermarket.

A real shop in a town of tiny stallholders, quite well stocked and with a constant flow of local buyers.

When the owner Dominic Siasamallisi started selling things about five years ago, he did not have anything like a shop, just a basket of one or two household necessities by the side of road.

Mr Siasamallisi got his start from a private bank called The K-Rep Group, set up by a Nairobi not for profit NGO, or non government organisation, eight years ago.

K-Rep gives tiny microloans to people who are too poor to be of interest to conventional banks, who always demand collateral in the shape of a vehicle or real estate in case the loan is never repaid.

Because the poor have no collateral to pledge, they tend to stay poor. All over the world, poor people are denied the loans that may help them get onto them up the business ladder, like Mr Siasamallisi did.
Story found here.