Rwanda on the rise, with Sam Tayengwa

Rwanda is rising as a regional financial centre, catching the East African fintech wave to drive economic and social transformation and broaden financial inclusion. In today's episode, I'm speaking to TransUnion's CEO for Rwanda and Head of Africa Growth Regions, Sam Tayengwa, to hear about the energy and progress bubbling to the surface there. We talk about mobile loans, of course, but also the emergence of old classics like mortgages and vehicle loans.

TransUnion is, as Sam said, at https://www.transunion.com/ but also at https://www.transunion.co.za/ and https://www.transunionafrica.com/rwanda (I think he got that a little wrong in the episode)

You can jump straight to Sam at https://www.linkedin.com/in/samtayengwa/, he's well worth the follow, and also check our TransUnion Africa's regional president, Lee Naik at https://www.linkedin.com/in/naikl/ and subscribe to his Elewa newsletter at https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/elewa-africa-thinking-6706525337850781696/

LinkedIn is where you can find and connect with me: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange (please do reach out, follow the show's page, and share the content with your networks)

Meanwhile, my action-adventure novels are on Amazon, some versions even for free, and my work with ConfirmU and our gamified psychometric scores is discussed at https://confirmu.com/ and on episode 24 of this show https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-24

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

The full written transcript, with timestamps, is below:

Sam Tayengwa 0:00

The narrative on the continent, I'll call it "the scramble of Africa, v2", right, or "reloaded", where everybody wants to come in and do something in Africa, looking for growth.

Then you have Rwanda, right, which is pivoting to become a change maker on the continent - just about 13 million people in the country, but very intentional about technology and financial hubs.

But more than anything else, when we talk about financial inclusion, we have included quite a lot of our people, but just because now Brendan has access to $10 does $10 really empower him to do more and better for his family and improve his livelihood? Absolutely not. So how do we deepen that financial inclusion. Those are now the questions we're talking about.

These are problems that are real. These are problems that matter. And we empower our people.

Brendan Le Grange 0:52

It was my uncle Stuart, who got us into cycling. This was in the mid 80s and early 90s and in our minds, there were only two races in the whole world: The Argus Cycle Tour, which is actually this Sunday and the Tour de France, which we could only watch on VHS tapes full of half-hour daily highlights that Stuart got from his brother, who was the one who had the pay channel that it was shown on. We're talking the glory days of Lauren Fignon against Greg LeMond, of Marco Pantani destroying the big mountains, of Mario Cipolinni and Djamolidine Abdoujaparov.

Then Lance Armstrong stole the joy of the sport for a while and it was only really when I moved to Yorkshire and got back onto my own bike, that I got back into the sport. And I discovered there was a whole world of big races out there. The Giro d'Italia, the Vuelta a Espana, the monuments and classics of Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Italy, important races in North America, South America, Australia and the Middle East. As I said, a world of big races.

Except in Africa. Yes, we do have the August Cycle Tour ond end we do have the Cape Epic, which in some ways is the Tour de France of mountain biking. But in road racing terms, we're still in the wilderness, though that is changing. We're seeing African riders bag big wins and we're seeing African countries bag big races.

Most notably on that front is Rwanda. As I record this, the eight stage tour of Rwanda is entering its final weekend with a last day climb of the cobbled and crowd-lined Mur du Kigali now one of the sport's iconic images. And next year from the 21st to the 28th of September, the road cycling World Championships will be held on the streets of the small hilly country.

Times are indeed changing. Welcome to How to Lend Money to Strangers with Brendan le Grange.

Sam Tayengwa 2:35

Sam Tayengwa, CEO of TransUnion Rwanda and Head of Growth Africa Regions for TransUnion, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Brendan. It's a pleasure to be here.

Brendan Le Grange 3:04

Now Sam, you started your career in insurance in Zimbabwe, and now you're CEO of a credit bureau in Rwanda. So quite a journey there.

How have you got to where you are today? What did your early career look like? And how's that brought you to the position you're in?

Sam Tayengwa 3:20

Yeah, it's been quite a journey, right? You know, starting off young in my career, from high school joining one of the biggest largest insuraners in Zimbabwe - I didn't know much about the insurance space, or the risk management space, just trusting that, you know, I would find my fit and grow from there.

And before everything settled, the economic conditions or climate in Zimbabwe really plummeted, you know, and I'm sure you're quite aware of economic migration that kicked off between 2005 to about 2009 in Zimbabwe. So I was one of those, the brain drain that happen.

And I found myself in South Africa. And because I gathered a bit of good knowledge and intel in the insurance space, I was fortunate enough to be employed by Discovery Health, working for a division called PruHealth which was serving the UK market. It was a big shift for me, massive culture shock. And that's where my insurance background and understanding the use of actually data - I mean, if you know, the Discovery story, you know, the whole Vitality concept is built upon data, it's built upon insights of how consumers behave - and that's where I took a massive interest into that space.

Then I moved to TransUnion in 2011. And I was serving the insurance space in the South African context, you know, especially in the short term before, we saw that there was a massive opportunity within our African businesses and region TransUnion in that period had acquired CRB, which had these almost shelf companies in different countries In Botswana, in Zambia, Malawi, Kenya, Rwanda, and then in 2017, Lee Naik whose currently the president for the region, joined. And, you know, I was fortunate enough to chat with him and he asked me 'what is your passion?'.

And I told him I see the renascence in Africa as an opportunity for me to grow, number one, my career, but also to share the knowledge, especially around insurance, driving penetration for insurance in these markets.

And that's when my journey into the African regions kicked off. I'll go spend a month or two, a couple of weeks, working with our in country teams, looking after the seven countries outside of South Africa, and speaking to our clients, assisting them to learn some of our products, and then post COVID, there was a need to actually grow some of our smaller markets, and a bit of forecast.

And then the ask was, do you mind sitting in Rwanda and help grow our market, and also still as some of our smaller regions where we need assistance to grow the footprint. And that's how I ended up in Rwanda as the CEO for the Rwanda business, and still assisting some of our region. So it's been a journey Brendan, and 'm very excited at it because with every part of this I've had a chance to learn new things, learn new markets, learn new customer needs, but more than anything else, met new people.

Yeah Sam, as you said that you've ended up with these two roles, CEO of TransUnion, Rwanda and head of growth Africa region. So let's start on the broad side, and then we'll narrow in as we go.

Africa is already a continent of growth. You spoke about the Renaissance there, I think 20 years ago, at that time, people just knew that there must be upside, right? It has to be growing, it has to grow in Africa. But we didn't really know how, what we've seen more recently, is a genuine upsurge in growth from young and growing populations, but also in real innovation in FinTech and InsurTech around the continent. And you've obviously been able to see that firsthand. What are those African Growth regions? And what are you seeing happening on the ground in those markets? What's exciting you?

Good question, Brendan, the African renascence, or the African growth story, has been for a long time just been a shadow. People talk about it, but not knowing exactly where to start and where to get off. And kudos to Kenya. I believe Kenya really opened this gate to what we are now experiencing, as I'll call it, the scramble of Africa version 2, right, or the reload, where everybody wants to come in and do something in Africa.

The FinTech landscape in Kenya give a platform for everybody to start seeing the opportunity that is sitting in Africa, and not to shut down our West African brothers and sisters, Nigeria also was home to the emergence of FinTech on the continent, but primarily where TransUnion sees our footprint is pretty much within the east and towards the southern block of the continent. And countries that we have seen to be very much geared up for growth have been Kenya, the population in Kenya, just like in South Africa, about 60 odd million people, young economy, but more than that very entrapreneurial people, are driven people, are willing to push boundaries. And the story of M-PESA, which was a Safaricom brainchild, really changed the dynamics as to how banking or as to how money is used on the continent, right. Everybody, when you want to talk about how Africa has transformed, you cannot talk about that without talking about M-PESA.

And it has shaped the narrative and to which even today we think of digital payments. You think of mobile lending, you think of transfers, it's because of an African story. So Kenya for us is a very key market. We believe in its growth, we believe in the young population that is in Kenya, that is asking questions that matter, that are demanding goods and services on the go. So that's why technology has been at the centre of how Kenya is doing things today.

Then you have Rwanda, right, which is very next door to Kenya, very young economy, very young, even in terms of population, just about 13 million people in the country, but very intentional about technology and financial hubs. So for us, we see the opportunity of having a business in one by virtue of how they're pivoting to become a change maker on the continent.

You know, you've seen the story in Zambia, a new government coming in very driven to change the lives of our people in Zambia. So those three countries in the Eastern block are where we believe in our growth in Africa will will really stem out from as well as we support some of the sub sub regions like Namibia and Botswana. But these three countries we believe in the transformative agenda that we have to grow their bases by We're also looking into other horizons, you know, they're countries like Tanzania, we might not have a presence as TransUnion. But Tanzania is a good, good business opportunity. And then as you move towards the west, like I said, Ghana and Nigeria are equally good opportunity for growth when you look at the African story.

But I want to just mention something, Brendan, to what you've said, in terms of what's really happening on the ground.

The reality on the ground is unlike in maybe in America, where it's one country, all of these countries are sovereign in Africa, right, each country has got its own regulatory framework, unique policymaking, unique governance. And to try and and dissect that, that's where you find sometimes just even cross border of data becomes a challenge. I mean, Rwanda, I'm transferred to Kenya, just from a credit point of view, and a thin file in Kenya. But yet I could have built a profile in Rwanda. So those challenges are still very much alive. And the things that we believe, with other stakeholders in the ecosystem we still need to solve for, these are problems that are real, these are problems that matter.

As we empower our people, they're still very much a big portion of our people that are still excluded from participating in the financial discourse of the economy, right. But more than anything else, when we talk of financial inclusion, we have included quite a lot of our people. But we still need to start thinking about deepening that inclusion, right? That's another real challenge that is on the continent, right? Just because now Brendan has access to $10. Does $10 really empower him to do more and better for his family and improve his livelihood? Absolutely not. So how do we deepen that financial inclusion to give Brendan maybe $100, where he was getting $10 to give Brendan $1,000, where was getting $100? Those are now the questions we're talking about.

Because historically, most of the people, either we're living remotely, do not have access to some of the tools and technologies that are very much available. Like if we were to think of South Africa as a country, those are real issues that are very much alive on the continent. And these are things we're trying to solve and address, Brendan,

Brendan Le Grange 12:05

it's actually just coincidental, but I've recorded an interview last week in Uganda, and just yesterday with Tanzania, so I've had a little East Africa focus. I worked in Kenya in 2006 2007, just at the start of the wave. And I think in the intro for the Tanzania show, I talked about this, but you know, I feel like if I'd be more astute, I would have seen what was coming because oh, we could see the way that Safaricom was using Voice Over Internet Protocols and such to drastically reduce the cost compared to what we saw in South Africa. But that also the other side, I should have seen and I just remembered it now when you talked about CRB, we used to work with them. And at the time I was in collection strategies. Yeah, the bank was buying a group wide installation of one of the really big collection strategy programmes, you know, from one of the household names we all know for 10s of millions of dollars, the whole kind of rest of the world was lumped into one system purchase and it was underpinned by a more Western type of thinking of we'll send out letters, and all sorts of things that wouldn't actually work for Africa. And in CRB there was a guy in the office there who had built them a system, I think it was called Recover!, and I've forgotten his name, I should give a shout up. And maybe he's out there somewhere. He coded just for them just in the Kenyan office. And it actually fulfilled our needs much better than this $10 million programme.

And I feel like now when I look back, it's like those signs. It was his technical ability to code and to build fully world class systems. But to build them on site with a local understanding, merging alongside this new reach of phones. Compare so came out a year later, but I do feel like I must add, and I do, I do always feel a little call. Maybe I should head back and be a part of it.

Sam Tayengwa 13:53

No, it's It's been an exciting journey, which I believe is still ongoing. There's a lot of maturity curves that are experienced at different times based on which country are actually looking at. So probably Kenya has a bit of a leapfrog other countries are still entering into their own maturity curve of digital transformation of credit risk management decision in capabilities, collection strategies, like you're mentioned.

But I think there's something that is critical in all of this conversation we're having is culture.

Culture plays a big role in Africa. If you want to do business, if you don't understand the cultural dynamics of each of these countries that we are talking about. It's not a one size fits all. Yeah, speak to a man in his language. We'll give you an our culture is a massive ingredient in your success story, number one, and number two, there's also a lot of educational awareness that needs to be done to answer to some of the problems that we see too. We know the problem statements, but is the awareness of some of these things being done in the most credible way to get the people to understand how the landscape works, how the business operates. I talked to a lot of folks that are probably sitting in South Africa, when they come into the regions, they come wearing a South African hat. And I tell them, it's not gonna work. Yeah, it's, it's not going away. But more than anything else exciting because once you get it and you unlock it, you're able to really do business.

Brendan Le Grange 15:18

And I guess you put your money where your mouth is, as it were, because a little over a year ago, you did move your whole family to Rwanda.

Now, you and I are both from countries whose histories are intricately linked to moments of violence and to difficult times. And of course, the same is true of Rwanda. But more recently, Rwanda has been the story of recovery, reinvigoration. And as you said, very intentional change in its path and reimagining of what it could be. We will talk about what you're doing there for work in a minute and what the Bureau does, but first, just as a country, for people listening who may hear the name, and then be a little bit nervous, what is your experience been of living in Rwanda of exploring the country. And should we whether we are fans of Arsenal or not visit Rwanda.

Sam Tayengwa 16:07

I think the first correction I would have had was for the visit Rwanda brand to be on the Liverpool shirt!

I'm a Liverpool fan. So I think I think I think that's the only thing I've corrected. But Brendan, what an amazing journey it has been for me and my family, I'll be honest, what an amazing experience, it has been being in Rwanda really knew much about one until I started working in the African regions in 2017. And I kid you not one of the safest countries to be on right now on the continent. If I tell you that, I have never, ever had to walk and look behind my shoulder, even a prophet midnight when I take a walk, and I just need to, you know, get my mind and my thinking juices on, I do not have to worry. So security has been one of my biggest wow factors.

When I moved here, the observation to the rule of law, people on the ground, I get to observe what the country's overall intention is trying to drive towards. And you see them rallying behind the national efforts. Other countries talk about being clean, you do not find people littering, you know, basic things like that cultural things where people don't leave, because once every month, people go out there tomorrow, actually, the last Saturday of every month, people go out into other coal maganda. And they go out and clean the country, cross the country, right?

It's discipline, it takes discipline, and it takes good governance, you know, corruption rates very low.

I'm not sure if you've been following the Kigali international financial hub drive right now, where they are trying to become a tax haven, you know, the massive projects happening with some of the UAE countries on the construction of the new airports, the gorilla conservatory parts that are they, it's just an amazing country, I could go on and on about the country. It's an amazing story to observe. So Rwanda is a country that I would encourage everybody to visit once in a while. But more than anything else, for me, I think it's the intention of the government to ensure that the lives of their people are transformed.

That's what I can close it out to say, challenging every stakeholder in the private sector to rally behind the efforts of government and government having an open door to be challenged by private sector. I've lived in South Africa, I tell you this, Brendan, I don't even know where the central bank in South Africa is the way the way you interact with the governor, you interact with the deputy governor, you interact with key stakeholders in the public sector here is amazing, is phenomenal. You can literally request a meeting and you meet and you engage, and you talk about things that really matter. So that openness is what is transforming the country to actually be most people liken it to the Singapore law or Singaporean model. Yeah, I believe they're driving their own playbook. I believe they're geared up to change the narrative. Africa has got richness and resources, we've got human capital, why can't we do some of these things on our continent? Why can we change things for ourselves?

Safe, happy, and I believe other countries need to just emulate some of these transformative changes that I've seen in this country.

Brendan Le Grange 19:23

Yeah, it's a wonderful story. And I must say that the people I know have been to Rwanda, you know, usually they're going there to see the gorillas, which is the sort of transformational experience. But still, the first thing they'll tell you is about how amazing the people were in the country was, and it takes a special country to be able to do that for somebody to go and do something like see wild gorillas. And that's only third or fourth thing they remember to tell you about.

So I've seen a lot of great FinTech events being hosted there for people to get out there. But yeah, let's talk about lending and about work again for a minute. What products are popular who are the lenders, what's the sort of FinTech versus bank? How I struggle there.

Sam Tayengwa 20:00

So if you were to think of some of these African countries and then go into Rwanda, you will understand that the credit growth and maturity is fairly new outside of South Africa, most of these African countries had predominantly been cash driven markets, it's not to say there wouldn't have been a form of lending or products that would have been there. But if you think of the South African credit market or maturity curve, you know, retail, for instance, people go and buy clothes on credit, you never have seen that in any of the African markets, they get a shock to hear that you buy clothes on credit. So there's still a lot of whitespace, there's still a lot of opportunities for better products to come into play. So personal loans have predominantly been the default lending product that we've seen in the market across all the financial institutions in Rwanda.

But now mortgage, your typical mortgage, right? It's starting to emerge as a product, that historically people would probably just get a personal loan and go buy a plot of land and try to, you know, use their own income to build a house for themselves. What you have started to see off the lead is vehicle financing starting to come up in Rwanda. I'm not sure how close you are to the VW project that kicked off, I think, a couple of years back where they had a factory and wonder and assembling factory and wonder, because outside of South Africa, maybe with the exception of Botswana and Namibia, most of these countries do a lot of great imports. Right? So you find a lot of Japanese cars out here, right? So with that said, vehicle finance, the process of it has been much of a challenge because the bank doesn't know the vehicle, they're financing, they don't have confidence on the quality of the vehicle, right?

Brendan Le Grange 21:38

I think I took a taxi in Kenya with heated seats, heated headlights for the Japanese snow, exactly. That speed important to a country where it never drops below 20.

Sam Tayengwa 21:49

Absolutely, so that is a massive challenge for vehicle finance. So now with VW in country, you find banks, like NCBA has got a product which is partnered with VW that you can get a vehicle finance because now they know the car, they trust the make, and they can know the value of the car.

We've started to see a lot of student loans coming in, there's a massive drive to educate the population, educate the masses and banks have been challenged to come up with student facility, you will see that there are two products I'm not yet talking about. And I want to spend a bit of time on them. And that's mobile lending. And agri financing.

Mobile lending is the you can almost say the breadbasket of lending in market, right, everybody, when you ask them what product you have nine out of 10 chances don't have a mobile loan. And then other type of products. And kudos to you know, working within an ecosystem where you have a bank and an MMO coming together to find a model that can you know, fund and distribute the load, right? I mean, exactly the tester you're talking about here and beyond.

It's called Momo, which is empty and product that is driven by their FinTech division. So they partner with with the bank and push these small tickets to customers. And the good thing is, you know, you could be new to credit, you haven't had a credit, but you've had your mobile line active for more than 345 months, you'll be eligible to start at a low entry mobile loan, and you grow your base as you pay up, right? Most of these have a cap of up to about $500. That's that inclusion I spoke about.

And now we're starting to ask the question, deepening of that inclusion through the use of alternative sources of data and other credit data to open up more funding for these small ticket loans so that they can reach as far up as $2,000 $3,000, then the agri financing is really starting to be a talk on the market, there is need to really find the farmers there's really need to capitalise the farmers for them to grow their coffee, or their tea, etc. The farmers are very much remote and the banks are in the city, the infrastructure was not in existence to understand how agricultural lending works, right? Without that type of lending, you realise that they'll keep on being subsistence whereas they could actually become commercial. I mean, one is known to the best coffee is well in East Africa and tea. So how do we empower our farmers to produce more in and out of season? Right?

So banks are asking the questions, how do we collect the right data set? How do we know the right data elements that we can use to determine the risk of farmers? That what point of lending do we come in to come in preseason? Do we come in, you know, middle season or postseason? They need to understand that horses no structure for lending. So these are these are these are your typical products that are on the market. And it's TransUnion our role is very simple. How do we work within the ecosystem as a trusted data partner? How do we collect your traditional sources of data planners alternative sources of data to see the risk understand the risk and price it better? And everybody you know being happy in that equation.

So we had, we have a massive role that we're playing right now, Brendan.

Brendan Le Grange 25:03

It's an interesting space, because on the one hand, some of the traditional products we know, are not there because the data wasn't there. So you need TransUnion to work, like TransUnion works in any other country, so that we can establish, you know, the big boring products.

But at the same time, you need to work for this new ecosystem that's been built much more on the mobile side of things, what sort of data products are out there that TransUnion is offering to the market? And how are you helping lenders and I guess, to some extent, as well, insurers to get to grips with this new world of big data and and all the opportunities that now exist.

Sam Tayengwa 25:39

So I mean, traditionally, TransUnion would be known for a consumer report, this is an aggregated report that facilitates the information on a consumer around his behaviour. So all of his obligations in the market, and how he's meeting, or she's meeting those obligations in the market. And we provide a score to that or with that, and I must say, the market is still in the process of moving from historically, flat pricing to now more risk based pricing, that I'd say the maturity care for credit is still in its almost infancy starting to move into sort of a moderate space.

So we know when you talk of your cut off limits, you know, when you talk of a trended score, it's a space that is still very much needing awareness.

But we do have scores, we educate our consumers, we even have a solution called me, Nisha, which is like a direct to consumer solution where customers on the street can access their credit reports via a USSD channel or portal that we developed, and they can pull their report and also see their score, and be able to manage that because we believe that client who constantly checks on their credit health is a health customer. So we do have a score in market. And we're also looking into come up with an alternative score that can solve for your thinking file in new to credit. And can we also start thinking about industry specific scores, like your circles, or MFRs. A

nd then we have what we call our typical portfolio analytics reports. So this is pretty much where we give insights beyond just the, you know, the tip of the iceberg that an institution would have a view of. So we give more horizontal view, because we can see what the customer is doing in different touchpoints, it's important to see how that customer is behaving across the landscape. Because then they can manage their portfolios for upsell, cross sell product differentiation, even product bundling. Because now you understand what your customer is looking for. Why are they looking for that product? What is it that you're not giving them in house.

So when we talk to some of our customers, I encourage them to think outside of the product centricity model, into the customer centricity model. But over and above that, we also understand that there is a lifecycle of a customer. So you have the acquisition or stage of a customer, you want to understand the risk of just, you know, know, your customer, your KYC, we have access to your identity information, we bought a company called ivation, which we have augmented API's into any of our regions in Africa, they have more than 6 billion devices that they be monitoring across the globe. And they keep adding more. And it allows us to give the risk on the device. So in markets that are now heavily going digital identity is very important. Can I identify the consumer? Do I know who I'm talking to? That's number one, we've got that information, we've got those products. But the second part is can can identify the device, right? What what risks is on the device.

Brendan Le Grange 28:36

And I think what's really interesting there is that one of the big conflicts we used to see blending in Africa as a sort of a British bank, we were at the time buying these systems from from abroad. And they would rely on things like your postal address your street address, whereas in Botswana, most people were using a work address, so you'd have too many of the same surnames going into the same place or in Ghana. In Ghana, they weren't street names. So you had this old world of KYC. When we say okay, you should put in place these checks to control money laundering to protect the customer to protect yourself. And then we say can you so you, you do that by getting somebody to show you a utility bill to their to their home address, whereas the mobile that is the way that we should be validating people's IDs, it is cutting edge international stuff, but it actually works at the level of the consumer. It doesn't come in with these assumptions about like sort of long held infrastructures that have since been leapfrogged and essentially irrelevant or redundant in market now.

Sam Tayengwa 29:36

Absolutely. You know, in this market, digital transformation could be just thrown up in the air, but you need to understand where they are in the journey. Some are still at the entry level and some are the maturity level. So you need to then walk with them on that journey. And we do surveys I know. In Kenya we released a market pulse report and we did one in Zambia and Botswana. I'm busy with one in Rwanda at the moment. I mean, this surveys, they help to give the voice of the customer, to our bankers to our institutional clients. This is what your customers are worried about. This is what the customers are saying when it comes to products. And then the last bit of what you say was the collections, because life does happen to all of us. How can you manage that?

And I challenge institutions, banks and MFI is to say if COVID taught us to restructure loans taught us to give payment holidays, it taught us that it's possible, why wait for your customer to fall into delinquents, and then you know, repossess their asset. Speak to your customers look into what the data is saying, some people have just fell into hard times, help them right as an institution. Also, it's good for you, because you will have massive bad debt.

So we've pre delinquency solutions, the one that I didn't speak about is just fraud in detail. So fraud, we've always encouraged to manage upstream more than downstream. So try to mitigate it at the point of engaging your customers than to try and pay school fees. We're now you have been heat, not so much of a big pain point for us in Rwanda, but in some of my markets around me, like in Kenya, maybe in Zambia. So those are the products we have in market. Our lenders are your typical bankers, your typical microfinance. But there's a segment called SACCOs disciple model. It's like a in South Africa, they would call it a stockvels, right. But here they are more organised, more regulated, because you could ever Sacco for teachers, it's an association of teachers, they lend within that group. You have asarco, even for the military, even for the police, even for the mortal guys that use you know, small scooter bags to transport people. So it's well organised. But obviously, there's need to do more and need to offer more products into the space.

Brendan Le Grange 31:42

Yeah, those are sort of a group savings programmes, which are essentially a mix between insurance and lending where you put money in every month. And then depending on the structure, either every month somebody gets a payout or borrow from it. And we're starting to see some innovators try and leverage the best of what those have.

So, Sam, a lot of interesting stuff happening. I know you travel around yourself speaking at various events. In fact, on the 14th and 15th of March, you'll be speaking at the African insurance forum at the Marriott in Kigali. But you're also, as you mentioned, sort of popping up here and there along the continent at various Trans Union and industry events. Lee Naik, your boss, he's always writing extensively on issues of African innovation. If people want to follow these, they want to have a direct look at the products you're offering. Or they want to follow more of the thought leadership that you're doing and Lee's doing, what are some good channels for them to go online and follow to make sure they stay up to date?

Sam Tayengwa 32:38

Yeah, thanks very much, very much open to engaging people in different parts of the continent or even the globe? who are trying to understand the landscape of you know, some of these African markets, how do you do business? And how do you start? Where do you start? So I'm very active on LinkedIn, like you mentioned. So my name is Samuel Tayengwa, you just type it to pick me up, I do tend again, to pause and share some thoughts invited to comment on, you know, market related issues.

But more than anything else, you know, we have active online presence through our TransUnion websites, you could probably start off with the TransUnion main website, which is transunion.com, which gives you the global view of how we are set up as a business, you can drop it down to the .co.za which is now giving you the South African product landscape. And in Rwanda, you just change the last part of the website to .rw

But if it is about getting us to participate on any platforms to share alike now with insurance Summit coming up where I'll be speaking on penetration on insurance in our African markets, but more than anything else, what we need to do different is insurance, through the use of data, insights, analytics and understanding the needs of our people as far as insurance is concerned. You know, I'm available on LinkedIn. And as you said, also for Lee, he has a monthly newsletter that he also drops called Leila, solace, or president for Africa. In those newsletters, he unpacks. What to think about and what to look for when it comes to the African continent?

Brendan Le Grange 34:12

Yeah, fantastic. I'll put those links in the show notes as well. One last thing, Sam, the nature of growth markets is that there's always something new on the horizon. So before you leave us now what should we be looking forward to coming out of TransUnion Africa? Is there anything exciting planned for the next few months? Yeah,

Sam Tayengwa 34:31

So thanks very much, Brendan. And just as a my pat off line, we are very structured on about two or three initiatives that we are largely driving so financial inclusion is a big theme in Africa for us. We are talking to institutions, governments in Rwanda, we've managed to structure an arrangement even with with a central bank here, and and we're looking at putting together an alternative score that we'll see So for, you know access to finance for for women in society because we understand how much excluded they've been compared to their male counterparts. And so financial inclusion is a big ticket item for us.

And then digital enablement. We spoke a lot on this show Brendon about how the renascence in Africa is all about the emergence of FinTech and you can't talk FinTech without talking about digitization of channels, digitization of services, digitization of solutions, I think it's important for us to align into these digital strategies and make them efficient and effective. And then the last one is our smart growth strategy. How do we help customers to think strategically around growth, because growth can just be unprofitable if you're not careful, right. And we've got access to data insights, analytics.

So these are some of the three main line items that we are aggressively driving and any opportunity we have beat at a summit. We've got summits coming up in Kenya, in Zambia beat at some of the events you have spoken about him, Rwanda, and some of the events in South Africa and the likes will always be coming back to this three main line items. That's financial inclusion in some markets, depending in some markets, driving the actual inclusion aspect of it, then digital enablement, how do we enable our customers to become digital efficiency. And then the last one is smart growth,

Brendan Le Grange 36:20

Awesome Sam Tayengwa, thank you very much for your time today, it got me super excited about what's happening in East Africa, in general and in Rwanda, in particular. So I encourage anyone in the markets to look for those summits and try and attend and anyone else who's been wanting to see the region to look when next is a big event to get you out to kick early. There's a lot going on there. And I think, a lot of big stories still to come. So thank you again for making the time.

Sam Tayengwa 36:47

Thanks so much, Brandon, and pleasure to be on your show. Looking forward to even more engagements in the future.

Brendan Le Grange 36:52

Though, Sam, it's been really exciting. I helped roll out the Philippine Bureau for TransUnion is similar stage with the first score the first data products, getting people to see the first time the bird's eye view of their customers performance. So yeah, tempted to send a CV in

Sam Tayengwa 37:08

lose time, right. Thanks so much, Brendan, I appreciate your time and bringing me on to your show, man.

Brendan Le Grange 37:13

And thank you all for listening.

Please do look for and follow the show on your favourite podcast platform and share the updates widely on LinkedIn where lending nerds are found in our largest concentration. Plus, send me a connection request while you're there.

This show is written and recorded by myself Brendan le Grange in Brighton, England and edited by Fina Charleson of FC Productions.

Show music is by Iam_wake, and you can find show notes and written transcripts at www.HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.show and I'll see you again next Thursday.