SPECIAL REPORT: 18 Months After SAM, Better (Digital) Services for 200k Kenyans via Musoni, Association for Micro-finance Institutions (AMFI) of Kenya

Caroline Karanja, the CEO of Kenya’s Association for Micro-finance Institutions (AMFI), recently told MicroCapital that, “The SAM conference in Addis gave us a platform to meet with new partners with whom we have created a steady working relationship since.” AMFI’s membership of 51 includes microbanks, credit institutions and other actors in the country’s microfinance sector. One of the organizations that Ms Karanja learned about at SAM was Musoni Services, which offers a software-as-a-service package called the Musoni System. This system is licensed to 90 MFIs in 16 countries in Africa and Asia. Together, these MFIs serve 756,000 people. (Musoni Investments, which is based in the Netherlands, holds stakes in Musoni Services as well as Musoni Microfinance, an MFI in Kenya.)

Cameron Musoni vendor space at the 2017 SAM; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Goldie-Scot, the CEO of Musoni Services, said, “We found the conference both interesting and beneficial, in part because of the relationship we were able to start with AMFI…. After meeting during SAM 2017, Musoni Services has worked closely with AMFI.… Our focus has been on helping financial institutions in Kenya to leverage technology like the Musoni core banking system and Musoni mobile app to improve efficiency and their customers’ experiences.”

Mr Goldie-Scot added, “AMFI has been key in helping Musoni better understand the questions about technology coming from the Kenyan microfinance sector. In turn, we’ve been proud to sponsor a number of AMFI events, including workshops focussed specifically on emerging technology trends, and as a result have been able to showcase Musoni to many organisations in the country. Musoni now works with 10 MFIs in Kenya serving over 200,000 end customers. We look forward to building on this relationship over the course of 2019 and beyond!”

ADA, an NGO based in Luxembourg, co-organizes SAM every two years with the support of Luxembourg’s Ministry for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs. The SAM steering committee members are: ADA, Luxembourg’s Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, the Microfinance African Institutions Network, the African Rural and Agricultural Credit Association and the Fédération des APSFD de l’Union Economique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine. We invite you to read more about SAM at http://sam.africa.

This vignette is part of a sponsored series demonstrating the value of SAM (the French acronym for African Microfinance Week), a major conference dedicated to financial inclusion in Africa. The first three SAMs were held in Arusha, Tanzania, in 2013; Dakar, Senegal, in 2015; and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2017. The next SAM will take place October 21-25, 2019, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso!

The goal of SAM is to provide a unified platform for addressing issues facing microfinance in Africa by bringing together investors, MFIs, researchers, banks, networks, innovators, governments and other stakeholders.

The 2017 SAM hosted 700 participants from 58 (mostly African) countries, including representatives of 200 MFIs; 25 exhibitors at the Innovation Fair; and 26 investors, who made 170 MFI contacts at the Investor’s Fair. The proceedings also included conference sessions presented by 60 speakers plus a menu of 20 training programs.

Additional Resources

SAM
http://sam.africa/

Additional vignettes and MicroCapital coverage of SAM
http://www.microcapital.org/category/semaine-africaine-de-la-microfinance-sam/

Additional vignettes on SAM en francais
https://www.ada-microfinance.org/fr/evenements/semaine-africaine-microfinance/objectif-sam-2019/paroles-de-nos-participants