UbaPesa is a peer-to-peer money market app where users can borrow and lend money. Led by a team with experience in running technology projects in the financial and education sector, the app integrates the power of crowdfunding and FX. The app being a market place for lending and borrowing money provides an automated matching of a borrowing and lending request with money being disbursed within seconds to a borrower’s M-Pesa account.
“As a solution developed for Kenyans by Kenyans, it is important for us to be very open and honest about how the money is being borrowed and whom the money is being lent to,” UbaPesa says.
The app comes at a time when mobile money lending in Kenya is growing as FinTechs and banks compete to deliver more innovative solutions for their customers. According to FSD Kenya, 35 percent of Kenyan adult phone owners borrow digitally.
UbaPesa has proved a worthy competitor in the mobile lending sector by creating a platform where users can not only get a loan but can also lend money and earn interest. UbaPesa, which can be used by anyone, is unique because it provides a money back guarantee to the lender and a credit bureau profile for borrowers.
The UbaPesa app is available on Google Play Store from this link
Features of the UbaPesa App
The app has the following features:
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Money Market: this feature provides information on the available loans and lending requests.
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Lend or borrow money: feature to either place a lending or borrowing request. One can lend or borrow money for a period of either 10, 20 or 30 days.
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Credit score rating: this feature offers automatic credit scoring of each potential borrower or lender. This provides the credit worthiness and or risk of each member in the app. To put it another way, the CRB (Credit Reference Bureau) score tells a lender if a borrower can pay a loan or not and how much money they can be loaned.
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Automatic matching: This feature provides automatic matching of a lending and borrowing request provided the lender and borrower’s loan requirements meet in terms of credit score, amount and loan duration.
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Single and multiple lending: Means one can place a lending request to loan to either a one borrower, or do multiple lending where one lending request can be loaned to multiple borrowers.
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Real-time withdrawals: money is transferred to your M-Pesa account in real-time.
The app also allows you to check your balance and withdraw your money while all transactions on the app are carried out through M-Pesa. Furthermore, lenders are not allowed to contact the borrowers because the app does not disclose the contact details of neither the borrower nor lender. UbaPesa is solely responsible for contacting either party should a need arise.
How Does UbaPesa Work?
To get started, download the UbaPesa app to your phone and register. To lend on the app, add money to your wallet and lend to a single person or lend to several people until the original amount is exhausted. Lenders can loan any amount of money they want up to within their loan limit as determined by their credit score.
The app automatically matches a borrower to a lender based on the amount, loan period and credit score rating. A lender can also choose a borrower manually regardless of the credit score, the number of days, and the amount. To do this, one would simply click on a loan application displayed on the money market and accept it.
UbaPesa charges a facility fee of 8%, 9% and 10% for 10, 20, and 30 days loans respectively. The lender earns up to 55.25% of the total interest on any borrowing, with 44.75% of the interest covering, UbaPesa platform fees, insurance and 15% WHT (withholding tax). To borrow a loan, place a request and enter the amount of money you want to borrow. Once you do this, the app will automatically match you with a lender.
Quick Guide
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Adding Funds To Your UbaPesa A/C
- Borrowing & Lending
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Repay Loan
Withdraw Funds From UbaPesa A/C
According to the CEO George Wasike, UbaPesa envisions a product that will one day be used across Africa and globally and is committed to offering a product that is user-friendly and easy to use.
“Our users are at the heart of everything we do from changing the login page to how much we should lend. We will be integrating a lot of user feedback that we have received over the last few days to create the best experience,”
The Team;
UbaPesa is wholly a Kenya product developed and owned by Kenyans for Kenya. The team led by the CEO, George Wasike, comprises of Ronald Mutuku the CFO and brains behind the core back end system and Gordon Ochieng the front end android developer both of whom are experienced systems developers having successfully worked in tech projects in finance and education sectors in Kenya.
The team also comprises other Kenyans in the banking and ICT sectors that are playing a crucial day to day management and advisory roles to ensure UbaPesa becomes the number one fintech app not only in Kenya but Africa.
-KWS
