Savings and credit cooperatives in Kenya have been connecting millions of people to provide affordable financial services. These members are responsible to deposit savings and applying for loans as well as managing various operations. Membership thus becomes an important aspect for SACCOs that powers their growth.
According to SASRA’s annual reports (2011 and 2012), SACCOs have experienced continuous growth in the number of members in Kenya.
According to the World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU) annual report 2020, there are a total of 40,413,389 members associated with credit unions in Africa.
Membership growth becomes one of the primary objectives of credit authorities in Kenya and Tanzania. Many organizations focus on membership growth and better collaboration for cooperative societies. It can bring substantial benefits to SACCOs. Firstly, growth in membership can lead to the growth of the cooperative society. It can give an impression that the SACCO focuses on the welfare of its members. Secondly, the inflow and outflow of cash will increase as more members will be encouraged to deposit their savings and more people will apply for loans. Thirdly, the cooperative society will have more diversified human resources to manage day-to-day operations.
How Wakandi can help
Wakandi can help promote membership growth and collaboration in SACCOs through digitization. We believe that technology can play a key role to support higher authorities to achieve their goals effectively.
Providing a digital solution
Digitization is changing the way how SACCOs operate. More and more people are switching to digital channels to make payments and transfer money. Adopting digitization can help SACCOs gain a lead in innovation and attract more tech-savvy people to join as members. Moreover, it will add to people’s convenience as they will not need to visit physical branches as everything can be done through mobile phones. This can further attract more members to join SACCOs.
Faster operations
Many SACCOs follow traditional practices to conduct day-to-day tasks which sometimes lead to more time consumption, lack of security and member dissatisfaction. Our solution on the other hand improves the speed and security of the tasks which aids the growth of the SACCO and encourage more people to join.
Better collaboration
Wakandi allows SACCO members and admins to manage savings and loans online through a single system. This will also allow them to collect and assess various data points that help them improve their services and focus on the welfare of the members. In turn, the productivity of the SACCOs will increase and more people will be attracted to join as members.
Know more about how Wakandi can help your SACCO grow and prosper with the help of digitization.
Moving forward
Membership of SACCOs has increased at a rapid pace in recent years. As higher authorities continue to focus on membership growth as one of their goals, big growth in membership can be seen in the near future. SACCOs will seek to expand their outreach to members and provide them with more savings and credit services.
We, at Wakandi, promote technology as an instrument to support these objectives and bring a better change to how SACCOs operate.