The Kuunda Digest - June 2024

We are thrilled to announce the addition of 8 new employees to our team! This year, we aim to expand our reach and operations to sustainably support entrepreneurs worldwide in growing their businesses. These are the people, along with our current team, that will help us soar to new heights:

With a product that is used through digital-first distribution channels, it’s easy to believe that everything has to work through these channels.

However, we know that all users have different, unique requirements, particularly regarding communication preferences. That’s why we have built out our own product growth and implementation teams to support all of our roll-out activities and ensure that our users get the support that they need.

Our teams also conduct research into these requirements consistently to ensure that we stay on top of their needs. Here’s an interesting finding below that supported our rationale behind building out these teams.

Many emerging microfinance businesses have increasingly focused on female borrowers. In the early days of the microfinance movement, credit had a greater impact on female entrepreneurs, leading to higher adoption rates among women. Research from major MFIs like Grameen Bank supports this trend.

Our research studies in Pakistan also aim to create more parity among different types of borrowers.??

The extract below speaks to this notion and gives great insights into this topic.

“Women are the main target audience of microfinance programs. This credit amount not only helps poor women to grow economically but also improves gender equality, the status of women within the family, their health, and their education level [35]. Moreover, women are examined as a good credit risk by microfinance programs due to their increased propensity to repay loans [24]. In contrast, men are more interested in moving their money toward risky business practices and are at high risk to consume this money on tobacco, gambling, or drinking [20]. However, Goetz and Gupta [20] also highlighted that a significant percentage of women's loans are directly invested in business activities by their male relatives, but the liability of repayment goes to women borrowers. The recent literature primarily discusses the evaluation process of microfinance programs [3, 38, 65] in the context of the well-being of borrowers [14, 501 and empowerment capabilities of women [611. The reporting of these evaluations reveals some conflicting conclusions, and it still tells that borrowers have an absence of accounts for themselves and this impact of credit can affect their lives [35]. There is limited evidence in the literature on how the poor perceive the process of microfinance loans. In addition, the existing literature has limited scope regarding the "transformative process" of entrepreneurship which reveals the lives of those needy people who are living in extreme poverty [76]. In response, this study fills the gap in the literature by examining how most disadvantaged borrowers or potential borrowers themselves perceive and experience microfinance in a context characterized by extreme poverty, one where family responsibility and entrepreneurial activities are closely intertwined.

A study reported that 95% of Grameen's borrowers were females and this percentage kept on rising till 2011. Similarly, Aghion and Morduch [6] highlighted that 71% of total borrowers of MFIs were women.

Further, past researchers have also pointed out that MFIs target women because their default rates are meager as compared to men [5, 36]. Because of this reason, MFIs have launched several innovative schemes to support their female clients financially. MFIs play a crucial role in enhancing women's empowerment as it boosts their resources, increase return on human capital by improving their affordability, and consequently improve their living standards.”

To read the full article, which we highly recommend, click here.

Sleuth brought our brand to life, turning our vision into reality. Recently, they produced a video that beautifully captures the essence of the Kuunda patterns and their presence in both the real and digital worlds. Typically, you only see things in isolation. This video showcases the patterns and highlights our internal progress over the past few months. Want to see our brand come to life? Click this link.