The United Nations-based Better Than Cash Alliance has
concluded a study which showed how agriculture nonprofit organization One Acre Fund in partnership with Citi Inclusive Finance,
successfully digitized loan repayments for farmers in Kenya, reports NaijaAgroNet.
This move significantly boosted transparency and efficiency,
driving economic opportunity and financial inclusion for thousands of
smallholder farmers and their families.
Head, Communication at Better Than Cash Alliance, Angela
Corbalan, said the study by One Acre Fund
was supported by Citi, and enabled farmers to easily make loan repayments via
mobile money instead of cash, reducing the uncertainty, inefficiency,
insecurity and high costs previously caused by cash transactions.
NaijaAgroNet
reports that with this digitization, One Acre Fund could now reach more farmers
with greater reliability, and staff can spend almost half as much time
collecting payments in cash, using that extra time to help farmers increase
their incomes through training and educational programs.
“With One Acre Fund’s package of services, including
training and inputs like seed and fertilizer, the average farmer participating
in the program earned nearly 50 per cent more than peer farmers who do not
participate,” she said.
In addition, she listed some of the findings to include that
there has been increased participant satisfaction due to transparency and
convenience; 85 per cent decrease in instances of repayment fraud as well as reduction
in processing time for each repayment from 12-16 days to 2-4 days.
“… Farmers now know immediately when their payment is
received, eliminating the worry about whether it arrived,” she said.
Further, NaijaAgroNet
reports that study found out that Eighty per cent decrease in repayment
processing costs, while 46 per cent of time reduced for staff working on
collections, allowing for more time helping farmers to improve agricultural
practices.
Just as women farmers benefited especially, because they now
feel safer about payment deliveries.
Isaac Oyimah/GEE
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