The investment will be used to expand its services in Kenya/FILE.
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 26 – Digital financial service provider Branch International has issued its fourth commercial paper of Sh500 million.
According to the company, the investment will be used to expand its services in Kenya.
The issuance come after the firm announced it had repaid its third commercial paper of Sh500 million.
The latest funding brings the total capital raised locally by the firm since its first issuance in 2017 to more than Sh1.5 billion.
East Africa General Manager for Branch Dan Karuga said the company is uniquely positioned to leverage its advanced use of data science to underwrite and provide credit and other financial services to more customers than ever before.
All commercial paper issuances have been arranged by the Centum-owned advisory firm, Barium Capital.
This capital supplements the Sh17 billion raised earlier this year from top international investors, including the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation, Visa, Foundation Capital, Trinity Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz.
“As we scale our services in Kenya, we welcome regulation of our sector and looking forward to working with the Kenyan Government on this initiative,” Karuga said.
His sentiments are like those of members of the Digital lenders Association of Kenya who last week said they do not mind being regulated by any organization if it has been approved by the law.
Earlier this month, Central Bank’s Governor Patrick Njoroge said the regulator would soon start giving a mark of approval to mobile lending firms, in a bid to protect customers from unregulated mobile lenders.
