is just a conceptual dream and has
no practicality and profitability in
the real world, but agency banking
makes a strong case as the future of
banking. The amount of money that
moved through agency banking was
about half a trillion shillings which
is about half of what moved in
M-Pesa the same period.
Chase Bank Swag and Reducing
Balance Theory
We have this hotness index that
states that if there are too many
hot girls on the streets or working
as bar hostesses then the economy
has a weakness. I don’t know what
to say about Chase Bank which is
now under receivership but I think
there is a relationship between hot
women and money. They have this
“reducing balance effect” if a man
is not careful.
When we were learning
accounting at the business school,
there was a guy who had a hot
girlfriend, we happened to be
leaning about how to account for
depreciation, we nick named the
girl as reducing balance because
the guys stipend reduced at
lightning speed.
I was in Kisii sometime back and
I met a man who told me he likes
banks that are not flashy. Still,
he would pass through a Chase
Bank branch in the morning to be
inspired by the beauties then go
bank his money in a less flashy bank.
Don’t hoodwink us with hot girls
but please take care of our money.
Customer service from hell - CRB,
KYC, Zero/low Interest, no hi touch
The relationship between banks
and their customers is affected
by regulation; this is because
banks are highly regulated. The
relationship between banks and
their customers has to be within
the Central Bank requirements
and the bank’s own rules.
Some rules such as Know Your
Customer (KYC) requirements
can make you waste hours in a
bank over something that even an
M-Pesa shop attendant can solve
in a minute.
The other animal is Credit
Reference Bureau (CRB) listing,
the bank will decline to give you
a loan of say a million because
of some small old loan of two
thousand Kenya shillings. The
thing with CRB is that they don’t
tell you when listing and if the
listing is by mistake you still face
the consequence of the listing. And
the process of getting delisted is
time wasting.
I once found my friend looking
very frustrated at a members club
in Nairobi. He is a CEO of a
company in the financial market,
he explained that he had applied
for construction financing but it
had been declined because of CRB.
He narrated that some time back
he had a loan with a bank which
he paid in full with a cheque.
Because at that time cheques
used to take three days to clear,
the bank accrued the interest
for the three days meaning that
according the records he still
owed the bank and that was the
reason for CRB listing. Housing
Finance was recently ordered by a
court to pay a customer 46 Million
Kenya shillings over inappropriate
auctioning of a customer’s security.
Governor who is very strict.
The cartel has been unable to stop
the interest capping law and the
Governor and team have become
more vigilant in their supervisor