President William Ruto has announced significant enhancements to the Hustler Fund, a key initiative under his administration’s Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda.
The fund’s borrowing limits have been tripled for over two million diligent borrowers, and the repayment period has been extended from 14 to 30 days.
The introduction of the Bridge Loan product allows borrowers to access up to three times their current credit limit at an unchanged annual interest rate of eight percent.
This adjustment is based on a newly implemented credit scoring system that categorizes borrowers into nine bands, from A1 (excellent) to C3 (poor).
For instance, a borrower previously eligible for KSh50,000 can now access up to KSh150,000.
President Ruto emphasized that this credit scoring system serves as collateral, encouraging financial institutions to consider these scores when assessing creditworthiness.
He stated, “We are assigning a credit score to every borrower so that this becomes their new collateral.”
Since its inception in November 2022, the Hustler Fund has disbursed over KSh60.5 billion to approximately 24.7 million borrowers, with a repayment rate of 79.5 percent.
Additionally, borrowers have accumulated savings totaling KSh3.5 billion, with contributions split between short-term and long-term savings managed by the Kenya National Entrepreneurs Savings Trust.
These enhancements aim to deepen financial inclusion and provide greater support to small-scale entrepreneurs, reflecting the government’s commitment to empowering the underserved segments of the population.
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