CARMA, Kenyan startup signs agreement to begin operations in Zambia

CARMA, a Kenyan-based credit data marketplace, has signed an agreement to begin operations in Zambia.

CARMA grants lending companies access to real-time credit data on a peer-to-peer basis via a pay-as-you-go service.

Even though the CARMA’s headquarters is in Nairobi, the initial launch will take place in Zambia, where it has signed an agreement with the country’s National Association of Savings and Credit Unions (NASCU) to provide credit reference services for 1,122 credit unions which will serve about 1.5 million members, equivalent to almost 15 percent of Zambia’s adult population.

Per reports from Disrupt Africa, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of CARMA, Ted Martynov said, “The number of people enjoying access to formal financial services in Africa is increasing by an unprecedented number, however, there is still a huge gap in accessing credit information and the growth rate for collection of credit data history is still growing at a very slow pace.”

“At CARMA, we have reinvented a solution for mobile money-based economies by creating an inclusive environment for the pan-industry by providing real-time data that will help lenders fuel their scorecards and provide a unique method to monetize data for any enterprise. CARMA is available across Africa as data is provided from one peer to another and we do not store any customer information in our servers.”

Also, managing director at NASCU, William Kanyika said his organization was happy to find a critical missing component for the lending infrastructure with CARMA.

Kanyika said, “It fully covers the needs of credit unions in sharing credit data amongst themselves, which is now even more important than ever before due to the economic impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“Over-indebtedness control and fraud prevention are expected benefits for lenders and we believe that many other financial and non-financial institutions will leverage the impact of the credit data marketplace along with us.”

CARMA is planning rollouts across the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa, especially in markets that have limited credit reference services.

The startup’s services are available in both Africa and Asia.