on d w o, what people have to say to us, ah, that's why we listen stories reporter every weekend on d w. i. hello and welcome to another edition of the 77 percent. this is where we unpack the issues that are important to young africans. my name is michael duty to this. sure is all about debt dwindling. revenues following the covet, 19 pandemic hub, force many young people to take out loans. the lenders range from banks to loan apps and the dreaded loan shocks. while some i west indies loans in bible businesses, others use them to cover busy costs like rent, clothes, food,

or even gifts for ya, lovers are very on it or kimani is on the ground in nairobi to find out how been buried under a mountain of bit impacts young people's futures. ah, the 77 percent is back in a row, be kanyes capital and it is here that as of april last year we were told that 14000000 loan accounts had been blacklisted by what we call the credit reference bureau. these are the people who basically determine whether or not to get credit and for those people, they're at risk of either not getting financial services at all or getting limited access to credit. and so a question today is, is it fair to lock out people from money knowing full well, they might not have any other option. so we're going to start with emanuel, who is really a representation of what most kenyans experius been caught up in the dead cycle. so emmanuel in 2019 before cove, if you had a job as

a waiter and then 2020 happened covey, you lost your job unfortunately, and i'm sorry. and then you decided life is too tough. i need to borrow money. so where did you go? i went to get a bang to borrowed them and 7000 just to pay for my rent and pay for some food stuff. and when you went to the bank, what did you say you wanted the money for? well, you honest that you wanted to use this money for rent? no, i just bought the money money to pay for some vacation. so use you like it to pay for. so if any, than the money or that more. yeah, you are desperate. okay. i understand that eric you in a similar situation, right. tell me what was the constance is lead you to borrow to because i needed to do my stuff. usual establish old routine breakfast for lunch things. les credit for new know yeah. you of your girlfriend there you have. you have your girlfriend there. you are borrowing to take care of your girlfriend. no,

you know if you don't perform, she lives. so you had to do everything. comerica, harvey, i was not expecting this conversation to go like that. so, so where did you, where did you borrow money from? i bought it from friends. uh huh. i borrowed from this apps on mobile mobile apps. yeah. is there some that give loans? cheap cheap loans in the india. how much debt did you have accumulated at a lot of dep lake? $9000.00 to him program. yeah. and how did you pay back? i for 2 dazzling when they walked came back. okay. well, that's interesting because what these 2 gentlemen are telling me is quite honestly surprising. the statistics from the digital lenders association of kenneth here says that people borrow money primarily to invest in their businesses and then education, but not necessarily for recurrent expenditure. yeah, basically you win the london market and the financial sector. you find that a and what you really sees is very true. people will not be honest with verizon for

boring. i want to been buy a cobra, come and say, i want to buy a plot. i want to go and build some structures at home. my roof went off, i want to repair it. but basically in most of the loans that are consumer based loans, basically the good to the current expenditure and most claims because those loans do not generate income, then then defaulted, they're not paid. so basically you start choosing up after people who borrowed loans from you and basically put them into expenditure. we weigh close by for these nothing that you get out of it, that money is consumed, you have a head to call to be ok. so let's come to the ladies here because you're both entrepreneurs and also relying on credit from banks, from maybe some of these mobile apps that we're hearing, only when you are borrowing money to your business. yeah. did you lie about why you needed the money? first of all, i didn't even worried a bank because i didn't, you know, for you to wait a bank, you have to deposit in a buck your cash flow statements in and out. mean the type of loan you get, but not starting my business child. your 1st school, you know,

like where you moving money. so my 1st thought was, i don't want to go to my parents and like dad, mom, friends, give me money, do something called lending ups. and then there's so many that i can start with. no one knows me, you know, none of my problems. i can start from there. so i personally relied so much on lending up and what i learned to use them wise, fibbed in the lending ups, the more the lord and the mirror of increase. that's how i started my business and that's, that's how you've been lending up to be. would you credit the success of your business? right. keep the capital injection to credit. yes, i would because when you're fresh from school, you're usually toil. please leave your money. you know, save pocket money, but you don't see the essence of that and to give you a new school. so if it is school and you're like, ok, i'm not necessarily getting a job. where can i get capital? so you can go back to a parent whose could you for, for good job and the leg that give you more money. so you would literally started learning the ropes and you realize, oh,

so they'd lending ups and i personally would say they worked for me because i was able to find my business, especially pretty expensive with the lending. okay. let me come to tony here for a 2nd because we're hearing that family and friends actually constitute the 2nd largest majority of where we get a credit form. this was astounding to me that before you go to a bank, you go 1st through a 3rd party who is until december unregulated and then you go to your family and friends and you're saying, oh, we need to regulate this space as well. talk to me about that. yeah, over the last 10 years, digital ended up having started and can and we have the largest number of lending ups per capita on the planet. most difficult crazy. is that the regulatory framework for it? we 7 years too late, and i also think that when over the last 7 and a half years when finished up showed up, it's when it moved from family and friends and then institutional exactly, chalmers and banks to finish up. it's a very young culture and looking around at social media and the consumers in

culture, we have k b s can be a statistic says only 17 percent of the people between the ages of $23.00. that if you have a business that makes them any form of money. so a lot of the businesses you're talking about, we're talking about live in them. a lot of young people who are businesses are not making any profit. so when you have a 60 or 90 day credit system where you get your money from and that's what we're trying to try to set up and found it, we're trying to make it so that you can be able to borrow from friends, family, and colleagues, and have a credit rating system between partner, so they hold on hold on, hold on. so you're saying that you and i have friends, tony, and i borrow money from you. and so this will create a credit system for me where our friends will see that there's not trustworthy, please don't lend money, right? and that's the reason why i think for me, that the reason why my sense, because it's that tagline is fun for friends by friends. currently, the interest rates on average and cannot 24 percent for any money, but 24 percent is the average or any money borrowed. and usually when you're going

anything, the chance of that you're getting a 24 percent return on that investment is upset. it doesn't matter what you invest in gold to try. it doesn't work in a 30 day period. yes. so how do you expect people in the country, the middle income, like our friends here to come up with a and of captain, you want them to come up with not period of time, but amongst our friends, we have a much more soft value system between people we've grown up as an african community where we say everything, i mean we do to toggle and below that child is brought up by a village or a family. and by taking that situation, leverage technology to be able to create a credit scores around each other. i know you can lend me, you know, up to 7000 shillings. and because you, my friend, i have an interest in a 3rd party interest in keeping our relationship going. and so do i with our community or friends, the, the high chance i'll pay you back. ok, let's come back to eric because obviously eric, you are not boring from your friend. you are boring from these mobile linda that we're talking about digital lenders, and you go in there, you put in a couple of details. boom. they have all your information and you have your 2000

shillings. if you don't give them this money on time, what happens? okay, they take you then send you a couple of messages from your phone. even i stopped using one with one of me now mobile number because of the now do, are you sending me messages, sending messages, reminding me to pay to pay. yeah. so even i, i through my line. okay. you, man, you have, you had a similar experience with people. well, you know, calling calling you threatening you with things. what was the experience when it came to the collection of the most friends that live with the money, the stuff to handle them. because some of them will angry, telling you that the money has been long since they owe you money. so if they are coming out, they picked elevation. so it was your friends who are actually coming to your house to take items that will of significant value in order to repeat them. so now up them on. yeah, that must have been very painful and hurt to have been for about to can do anything

because you are them and you told them that the money i'll give you in the end of this month, i'd like to come to maria so that i can hear what you wanted to say earlier, we were talking about what some might say, a predatory lending practices and also provide 3 recovery practices. is this something that you've experienced? yeah, actually i my 1st loan, i took it through sherlock. and after taking that money, that money, it wasn't specifically for they took quite the way she looked into context is what we were talking about, the unregulated creditors. they normally give a loan on a perspective on taking something from you. so when i took that money was to buy a phone, and then i shifted into another location because they do want them to find me and then they changed my number. so right now, i also have to go to this unregulated person, instead of going to a bank or to a circle with mr. washington. when you go to a bank, you need to be having an account fair and a bank to give you a loan. it's very hard because now you have to have that sort of connection with

them. so say you could just run, tell that person, you know what man, i'm stranded and they need money. they tell you that to have you need to have a guarantee or place something that when i see that, so it's easy, it's accessed right washington. i want to come back to you because we're hearing words that i'm sure any lender doesn't want to hear. like i lied, it's easy, it's accessible. i have no intention of being. in fact i skipped town. but the amount you're paying now is almost 3 times the principal amount is not moral for you as a person who's working in a circle to have lent me 2000 shilling and to have now collected 6000 and still be demanding more on that to 1000 principle, i say look, is puzzling who is not regulated it's, it's sort of illegal to do, say, looking and that is why you see some of these companies are. so did we get studying unlimited companies to be able to use it other plus work lead money. so there is one way that interest literally can locate and become so huge, even moral above whatever you borrowed is because it's not regulated. but when you

come to regulated organizations, lexical is in bunk, then you cannot judge me. if i bought 2000, i cannot be more than 4000, but then the other day we'll see the reason why we find the young people in this score of debt is one. we have a challenge of how we manage our social life basically because when we are you talking about people boring for consumption is because i went out in so indeed the in, in, in, in c, j and taking a good meal. i wanted to feel good about it and i had, i don't have the cash, but i mean, that's not entirely fail only of here. and maria have spoken of how they're taking to invest. they're boring to invest, not everybody's boring for consumption. as you're saying that sometimes our budget and not realistic, we sometimes become over ambitious, and we've learned landless keel of studying, small and growing. we want to them set our business today to have us more business to more em banking millions of money the account. tell me what your thoughts are to your point of why are people bothering shylock, send people to come and beat them up, is because both the lender and the borrower are completely unprotected. there is no

regulation that guards and protects the lender, which there should be. and there's no regulation that guards and protects the borrower, which there should be. so if you're going to borrow $30000.00 shillings, like the gentleman emmanuel did, and you have 30 days to pay back or $60.00 days to be back or 90 days to be back. can we just look at the average minimum wage in this country and figure out how are you going to come up with our money because that's where he's living us and we are in fact, we talked washington. he explains elaborately how will you have more lenient and long term payment process procedure, soccer's, offenders cycles often do they have a much higher return rate and a lot more, a lot more people paying their debt because life happens. i want to come back to just for a 2nd, because i think basic economic theory states that a person who lends money must be prepared to not get back in return. should the lenders, the washington of this world, assume some degree of risk. and therefore, the question of you have to pay your debt. is it really accurate? we are living in a form of extraction is a kind of a clinical economic system. oh,

look at the government. the government extracts whereas the citizens expect, services are that the cost of living will go down as much as you're paying high taxes. and as the models of the government has always been using, but what have you been finding is that the meant extract. whereas the citizen does not receive services, so the citizen has to go into their pocket so that they can be able to afford the basic livelihood dental. i totally understand that, but he doesn't answer my question, which is knowing all this then fair to expect that the same you will, whether or not they bought that money for their girlfriend will be able to pay back the credit it follow the same extraction part done right, so the citizens are full in department of the governmental that is an easier way going there. we know in the intention of being the obligation that comes with their boarding of these, of this loan. i like that for that. if you do just section is model. if only i can said tony, i'm coming to you, please don't run away because i could hear you me and i'm i'm being in the

background. i think the 2 parts to it. yeah. naming of government and constantly shifting blame to someone else has its limitations. it's true. we are unexceptional economy, it's too efficient. skyrocketed in your right and seeing our parents. i mean more than we pound for pound or shilling for shilling. but there's a couple of things that we also need to change. and 2 of them are we understand that in a consumerism culture you have a nice one. why do i have to have a night for the concept just to be called to use my texting whatever, if i can, but get something for, you know, $150.00 instead of something 4000 dollars. i should do that. we don't do that. the 2nd thing is, i think there's a lot of misinformation and just general lack of knowledge and comes to financial management. a lot of the intake apps, including psychos and banks and financial institutions. they are very good at lending, but very bad educating. so if we know people are lying about how can we improve that? so tony, speaking of that leads me to only because education seems to be a key thing that's coming out here. do you think people had more knowledge that would make less risky loan?

you know, when i finished school and then i entered adulthood, i quickly realize that they so much that's who do you teach? he left for me, vintage me taxes. it didn't do to me how to manage my money. he didn't teach me how to survive adulthood. and i don't know until i know, and this is the obvious. and that's when i quickly read to you tube. so i'm looking for people to like, teach me these things and i realized no one basket. and sift to say that's when i started my channel because i was like, okay, no one is telling me things, no one is telling me how to survive. let me create my, you 2 channel and whatever i learn, i'm going to share. and that's what i'm saying. in the process of your life, you know, a name and i, when i did my video for how to burn, i learned from m friday and people why excited to learn. and i was explaining to them from guys, this is a tums. if you don't pay, the interest rate goes up and if you, if you missed a $30.00 day period though, extend your loan for another 30 days. and if you don't have a percentage of it,

intrusive, and everyone's like, oh, i didn't know this. so university of youtube seems to be a popular object. yeah, but one of the risks for this, because obviously not everything that's on youtube is credible. ah, you, it's up to you or. yeah, because i might like less must credit. the fact that information is easy to get now like, you know, our parents, i think they had to put libraries or they had to depend on what the price of 2 of them are. what of mouth. but for me and you need to buy 10 and bees, and i'm going to go to google, read a gazillion articles and trust me it if, if you read like 10 articles by let lending, i mean you should kind of know what to expect. okay. let me come to eric because you have the capacity of mind to be like, i'm not paying this debts and you knew how to escape your lenders. so you also knew what the consequences would be. did you are? you didn't, you said you didn't care. now that you do, do you think you would borrow differently or doesn't education not matter if you're desperate, you're desperate. tell me. it depends. now i cannot tickets. just like the last

time i took it, because i don't know where they learned that i threw out the lame a dinner. they took my name one or my mom by doing oil. if they kept me on sierra b o b blacklisted me menu, i want to know joshua, let me come back to you. they something that an olive has said, you know, and it keeps coming back to what tony has had the sense of community. we have intrinsic knowledge of how to do this. why then is it that when it comes to formal debt, it's usually associated with violence, you know, literally going to somebody's house and taking away their property. personally, i'm looking at both both parties. the person that is lending you money, they're spending so that they can lend you money. so it doesn't make any sense that if they get into a contractual engagement, to do that, you fulfill this and they fulfill my part of the obligation. come on, joshua, let's not kid each other. we've just heard that people are using text messages, calling you employers to harass you. but that's what you got into when you agreed

to the terms of the engagement that you got into. if a contract or family? no, no, no, i'm hearing no, let me hear from 21st and then i'll come to you olive. no, no, no, no, no. tony says on norway only got a king, a data protection act person, every single individual from having to phone, scraped into details, used for anything but without clients, without consent. and even when they ask you for consent, they still cannot use your data against you. they can use your data for creating credit score systems or anything like that. the can check all of these things, but no one should be allowed and no one can be allowed to come and use your information against you to call your mom. call your best friend, call your husband. will your wife? it's illegal, flat out. simple. great. let's hear from all if you're saying a back to the point for joshua that no, no, no, no, no. you have absolutely no right whatsoever to get into my private business to try and extract your finances. no, and i think about it gave me when i think about if left of because i might be able as olive to our cut in peer that lord infected bees. but can everyone, okay,

so we're going back to the original question or is it fair and to whom? all right, so we had the consequences earlier washington, i'm coming to you. we had earlier from maria about one of the unintended consequences of being in bad debts. what are some of the other consequences that you're gonna finding themselves in these dead willingly they've been pushed to that quote, great, if i bought from you as a beef, you're gonna shame me. you, you are in a sudden was up grub and are they at all? no, no, he doesn't even bear you or me. but then what you're talking about. i don't want that ship for a better. and she said, these people do not know. so i better go to af intake that doesn't know me, i'm biting behind a village. i am boring behind a real, but to win this will gets uncovered. now it becomes very but, and that is, that is one way the government has come to introduce an ignition so that i little the day even if it is a fintech, it to use this formal and legal ways to be able to collect this man. oh yeah, by the way, i think it's really important for us to save this that the government of kenya recently as recently as december of 2021 actually regulated the digital lending space by amending

a central bank bill. so back to the point of consequences. another one could be, are some other things that people get into trying to money to build it. sometimes we've seen families break up reason being as, as a husband, my wife went and bought it from a fintech or maybe from some other shylock. so the shell comes into the house or my up bridged that if we did it on the tv and it's picked, i don't find it in the house. what happens? where did the tv go? and she is in best explained that i say look somewhere, took the freedom to get for that, but then what happens, people get into depression. you off kill themselves in this country because of dead people have run away from the house. these people have done so many bad things because of the consequences of being in debt. so it's a real social issue. it is a for sure. okay. and it is growing and grew washington. thank you so much for that . but now i'd like to hear solutions and tony, i'm inclined to come to you 1st was you already have one of them, which is regulation of even the most informal spaces or one of the ideas. do you

have to control this debt appetite as washington so well put it. what we're doing a tribe is not the answer to every problem for sure. but we feel like there's a. busy power in peer to peer lending and saving that allows everybody to be involved in everybody else's finances. i have a stick in the manual success. yeah. and so if he gets into a situation, i'm happy to keep giving him and giving him and giving him if he is my boy, because his winnings my winning. but if you do a fintech up, it's all gonna work the same way. is going to be focused on the interest rates and how much money can get from him. so i think one of the 1st ways to improve the situation we're in now is to include everyone in the conversation to bring community back into finances less come to the educator on solutions. my 1st solution, e is books. the 2nd one i literally point are cross eas, google or youtube, or information in general. if books are not you thing, right? just go to google and decide every money. i'm going to do such 10 articles about barrington, articles about managing money to not coven high,

can properly skill my assets will increase my income. and then the final one at the point across is mindset. oh, my thought is a bit troubling because you boy and just like sallow and your goddess and then we come back and say as the music i'm not doing well or all these things are not doing really. so again, the mindset needs to change a bit. let's on up to yes, i didn't have money i borrowed, but can i also have the respect to at least paid, but yeah, korea, let me come back to this site. joshua, i'd like you to show what you're sharing here with, with washington solutions please. to day you are one sickness away to become a poor pass. yeah. so, so he has some medical condition. the government should invest in social protection programs that specifically focus on the youth. all right, so the government, instead of, you know, getting all these a youth social petition plans issue, consolidated them to even save. and because of admission of this fun, great,

and accommodate as many you so you're saying consolidate these funds, make it once central social. let's make it one social net for, for women, for, for the youth, washington very quickly. solutions are one of the solutions i think is a, we inculcate a cultural of property management for resources. because sometimes eve of through that a bit of experience where people are boring for not very good reasons. so i think from a very tender age, as, as, as parents and people are growing up, we need to inculcate the culture of financial management and ourselves. so that when, when it comes to boring, basically you cannot revenue from that. but when you're boring, you bring for the right papa. yeah, you bring what to contribute to repeat bro, within your means. and also we need to learn how to live within our means. and finally, eric, what do you think it will take for youth? who are your friends, who are in your community to stop taking bad debts as we've been told, the 1st reason i think is to take them reasonable learn. no, not for your girlfriend, as you said earlier, a go for it. and 2nd will take information. you have

information about sticking loans? did you find? is it conversation useful? dietary fantasy? well, thank you so much. this has been such a wonderful and inciteful debate. i've learned so much, it's felt a little bit like an economic class. i don't know how you felt, but if there's anything i've learned is that it's not that clear cut is debt any comic issue or a social one. to be honest, i still don't know, but i know that i'm thankful that you're watching a santa santa ah, that was brutally honest. and for me, i opened and i hope you've learned something from this debate because i certainly have. and thanks to everyone who participated and share your views with us, that is our show for this week. for more of these debates, checkout i youtube and instagram pages. we've made them just for you. and if you are still dreaming of the big machines and checks where no, the bows, only 2 people can guarantee you that will leave you with peter and paul acquit it

a, a p square. they call the song fun collette. my name is mike fluti. thanks for watching a problem. blue. ah, ah ah ah

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