Going the Extra Mile with Community Banking
Episode 17
Cynthia Wandia - Kwara
“We envision a future where the communities at the last mile are financially independent.”
Cynthia Wandia is Co-founder and CEO of Kwara, a digital banking platform for savings and credit cooperatives in Kenya. By digitising these community banks, Cynthia is showing how technology can be leveraged for communities who are often excluded from traditional banks. After studying electrical engineering and working in several different countries around the world, Cynthia set up Kwara in Kenya in 2018. It currently serves 28,000 members.
In Kenya, mobile money is ubiquitous, and as more and more people own and can afford a mobile phone, payment options and innovations in business have reached a far greater number of people than ever before. But Kwara sees that simply introducing mobile payments is not enough to support people in ‘the last mile’.
The last mile describes the geographical distance that must be spanned to provide services to end-user customers. Commercially it translates to the costly and not profitable end of the line that most companies don’t invest in. And so, in this last mile, mainly unfair capitalism thrives with predatory loans, high risk prices and debt shaming – which often leads to tragic consequences for already vulnerable people.
Cynthia sees that the only really fair financial institution is the one that people build for themselves; which we have been doing for centuries. Kwara’s aim is to help communities digitise so that they can own the benefits of technology that other sectors have been able to enjoy.
Kwara operates from Nairobi and Berlin and has been backed by Google for Startups, Catalyst Fund, Finparx, and Kepple Bonum Ventures.
UN Sustainable Development Goal #10 Reducing Inequality
SHOWNOTES
Overview of how community banks provide fair access to capital
Cynthia Wandia, the co-founder and CEO of Kwara explains what Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCOs) are, and how SACCO members can lend and borrow from a pool of capital. {4:13}
Cynthia provides an overview of how SACCOs, also known as credit unions work in different countries around the world. {6:09}
When questioned on commercial banking versus community banking, Cynthia explains how community banking instead provides fair access to financial services for its members. {7:41}
By providing financial services access to the portion of the community who are underbanked, community banks allow those people to also have the opportunity to build wealth. {10:16}
Cynthia lays out her vision for the future where communities are financially independent, and how someone not born in a situation of financial security can overturn his/her situation by having access to community bank by leveraging on social trust. {13:56}
The impact of Kwara on their community
The success of Kwara for Cynthia is mainly measured in terms of how quickly and easily members can have access to capital {16:09}
When questioned on their SDG goals, Cynthia explains how they have aligned their business with SDG 10 ‘Reduced Inequalities’ {20:40}
Driven by her love for reading, Cynthia describes how being inspired by different realities and stories of other people has allowed her to envision and materialize her own life. {22:40}
Having a thirst for knowledge, Cynthia’s approach is to keep learning from people who know more than her on a given topic and pass on the knowledge to help people succeed. {25:54}
How Kwara works and how to spread their mission
Cynthia provides an overview of the 3 main products of Kwara, being firstly savings cooperative services, secondly online and mobile banking and lastly providing members with a bridge from the community bank to other formal financial services.
People who can reap the benefits of the ecosystem of Kwara are its members, and Cynthia aspires to have them be better informed of Kwara’s offerings. {31:51}
Questioned on the need for more regulations for digital domains, Cynthia confirms that innovation and prudential guidelines must work in tandem to reduce the risk of shareholder profit maximization at the expense of larger stakeholders. {35:40}
To help Kwara in their mission, Cynthia invites anyone who believes in their business model to reach out or share their vision to potential partners. {37:56}
CONNECT WITH CYNTHIA WANDIA
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE
David Hwan | Co-founder and COO of Kwara.
Sparkasse Bank | Savings Bank in Germany.
M-Pesa | A mobile phone-based money transfer service, payments and micro-financing service in Kenya.
Eric Schmidt | Former CEO of Google and current advisor at Alphabet Inc.
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals │ United Nations
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