Partnering with Providers to Set DFS Standards for Client Protection

This post, the first of two on pilot assessments for digital credit standards, features a Q & A with 4G Capital CEO Wayne Hennessy-Barrett.

Digital lending has the potential to close the credit demand gap for unbanked, low-income customers, but the rapid growth of the sector has raised consumer protection concerns.

In Kenya alone, a leading testing ground for the digital credit sector, there are more than 50 providers and an estimated one in four Kenyans have taken a digital loan. With mobile phone ownership saturating developing markets, we can anticipate similar acceleration in the digital lending space globally.

Recent findings have generated debate over whether or not these new products are translating into real benefits for base of the pyramid consumers. Demand is rising from investors, regulators, and providers for ways to demonstrate responsible practices in digital lending.

To fill the gap, the Smart Campaign has undertaken research to better understand risks and benchmarks for responsible digital financials services. In partnership with MFR, we’re working with providers to conduct field assessments that identify best practices and help us to determine where to set the bar for responsible behavior. These field assessments, industry research, and engagement with DFS providers in Smart’s Fintech Protects Community of Practice will lead to standards for responsible digital credit that are sustainable for the industry while keeping client needs as the central focus.

4G Capital, a digital MSME lender in East Africa and a member of Fintech Protects, recently partnered with the Smart Campaign to conduct a field assessment. We asked 4G Capital CEO Wayne Hennessy-Barrett for his take on responsible digital lending and the value of industry standards for consumer protection.

Q: Tell us about the origins of 4G Capital and its products.

WHB: We began operations in Kenya in 2013, starting with microloans for enterprises using only mobile money. As our relationship with our customers grew, we began informal coaching and mentoring of clients to improve their performance. This evolved quite quickly into a program of enterprise-skills trainings packaged with each loan. We now have a number of different working-capital credit products which are the right size and timed according to the specific needs of the business user, and we’re also scaling with partners to reach tens of thousands of new clients each month.

Q: What was your motivation for joining Fintech Protects and inviting the Smart Campaign to work with 4G in a field assessment of responsible practices?

WHB: We have always been a mission-driven business. As a fintech lender, Fintech Protects was the perfect forum to share our experiences and learn from others to find ways to close the finance gap, which leaves so many businesses and families excluded.

The field assessment was a rigorous, end-to-end audit of whether we were able to ‘walk the talk.’ It is nearly impossible to self-assess with the right level of accuracy. Either you’re too hard on yourself, or you get distracted by successes and don’t zero in on the things that need to be fixed.

Q: What did the field assessment confirm about your business? What surprised you?

WHB: I was delighted, but not surprised, by the level of professionalism and rigor exercised by Smart and MFR. It was encouraging to get positive feedback on the positive customer outcomes we continue to see consistently – that really is the most important thing that we need to reinforce and protect.

Q: How do you think about scale and growth of your business in the context of a blended high-touch/high-tech model?

WHB: Accounting for inflation, forex risk and future value of money, this is the $64 Billion Question!

We need to scale to reach more excluded people, catalyze more value chain growth, and, of course, grow our own business. Our transformation program (which is a continuously evolving cycle) sees our AI and technology developing to continue to improve predictive underwriting to further deliver value to our clients as part of supporting their overall financial health. This should free our people to really focus and excel at what they’re good at: relationships, customer care, and contributing their own experience and knowledge to help us evolve with our clients’ needs.

Q: Of all the areas that the Client Protection Principles cover, what do you think will be the single most important issue digital lenders must contend with over the next five years?

WHB: It has to be data protection. There are a ton of fintech lenders who are trying to do good things at the moment, but where data can sometimes be gathered in a way clients, if fully aware, would find really intrusive. We need to reset the conversation about data and the way businesses conduct themselves so that even the most remote and excluded have digital self-sovereignty and power over their own data.

Q: How do the client protection standards provide value to you as a business?

WHB: Happy clients = happy business. It really is that simple.

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