Hunting for clients in Congo alleys
Friday, May 4, 2007
KINSHASA
LOAN officer Eric Katembo says his work is not easy. "If you're not used to it you can really get lost here."
Katembo is deftly navigating the alleyways of Kinshasa's Gambela market on his way to meet a prospective client. Katembo, who has been working for the local unit of Frankfurt-based lender ProCredit for nearly a year, is meeting Blanchie Mulema, 28, who has a market stall where she resells second-hand clothes she buys in huge tightly-packed bales.
"I heard about the bank from my neighbour," she says. "I thought, with a loan, I could increase my stocks."
Katembo asks her questions, writing down the figures that will be used to assess whether Mulema will qualify for a loan: How much did a bale cost? How much profit could be made per bale? How many bales could she sell per week?
"You really get to see the improvement with your own eyes. You'll start with a taxi driver, who has one car. Then he'll buy two more," Katembo says.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has suffered due to decades of mismanagement and a six-year war that killed an estimated four million people, wrecking the economy and infrastructure.
As bad as things are, some experts now believe the key to building a stable future in Congo can be found in its past.
"There is a long history of microfinance in the east of the country," says UN economist Daniel Mukoko. With few banking facilities historically available during three decades of rule by late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, lender cooperatives evolved, offering small loans to average Congolese.
But as the country's economic crisis deepened in the early 1990s, culminating in 9,800-per cent inflation in 1994, that system collapsed.
When ProCredit made its first market analysis of Congo in 2003, there were only about 50 bank branches in a nation the size of Western Europe with more than 60 million people, and barely any were giving small loans, says ProCredit's Congo director, Oliver Meisenberg.
"All the banks were for the rich," Meisenberg said. "There was a huge need for credit."
ProCredit and Washington-based village banker Finca International are in the vanguard of a movement that could spur development and financial reconstruction, and transform the country's anachronistic banking sector in the process.
"We think that microfinance is the segment with the best opportunity to respond to the needs of the population," says Mukoko, who works with the UN Development Programme.
ProCredit offers loans as small as US$150, with more than half made up of amounts less than US$1,000.
Reuters
LOAN officer Eric Katembo says his work is not easy. "If you're not used to it you can really get lost here."
Katembo is deftly navigating the alleyways of Kinshasa's Gambela market on his way to meet a prospective client. Katembo, who has been working for the local unit of Frankfurt-based lender ProCredit for nearly a year, is meeting Blanchie Mulema, 28, who has a market stall where she resells second-hand clothes she buys in huge tightly-packed bales.
"I heard about the bank from my neighbour," she says. "I thought, with a loan, I could increase my stocks."
Katembo asks her questions, writing down the figures that will be used to assess whether Mulema will qualify for a loan: How much did a bale cost? How much profit could be made per bale? How many bales could she sell per week?
"You really get to see the improvement with your own eyes. You'll start with a taxi driver, who has one car. Then he'll buy two more," Katembo says.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has suffered due to decades of mismanagement and a six-year war that killed an estimated four million people, wrecking the economy and infrastructure.
As bad as things are, some experts now believe the key to building a stable future in Congo can be found in its past.
"There is a long history of microfinance in the east of the country," says UN economist Daniel Mukoko. With few banking facilities historically available during three decades of rule by late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, lender cooperatives evolved, offering small loans to average Congolese.
But as the country's economic crisis deepened in the early 1990s, culminating in 9,800-per cent inflation in 1994, that system collapsed.
When ProCredit made its first market analysis of Congo in 2003, there were only about 50 bank branches in a nation the size of Western Europe with more than 60 million people, and barely any were giving small loans, says ProCredit's Congo director, Oliver Meisenberg.
"All the banks were for the rich," Meisenberg said. "There was a huge need for credit."
ProCredit and Washington-based village banker Finca International are in the vanguard of a movement that could spur development and financial reconstruction, and transform the country's anachronistic banking sector in the process.
"We think that microfinance is the segment with the best opportunity to respond to the needs of the population," says Mukoko, who works with the UN Development Programme.
ProCredit offers loans as small as US$150, with more than half made up of amounts less than US$1,000.
Reuters
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