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

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Sidian Bank has approved its first car loans to experienced Uber drivers in Kenya, using a model the ride hailing service hopes can be rolled out across countries in Africa where a lack of customer data limits lending.

Getting loans is one of the main hurdles facing small businesses and individuals across the continent as relatively few people have bank accounts or a credit score to go with them so lenders can assess risk.

Under the Sidian Bank scheme, Uber’s app for booking cars and registering customer satisfaction provides the data the lender needs to decide whether to offer Uber drivers relatively cheap loans to buy their own cars.

To secure a loan from Sidian, a driver must have accumulated a minimum of 500 trips with Uber and have an average passenger rating score of at least 4.6 points out of a top mark of 5, a way of ensuring the best-performing drivers get the loans.