Show Info: A podcast interviewing entrepreneurs and business leaders in the emerging market of East Africa. Host Sam Floy showcases companies operating across Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia. Find conversations with companies ranging from solar power and food production to smoothies and toothpicks.
It's widely acknowledged that one of the biggest prohibitions to the development of East Africa is lack of capital. The global economy is premised on aggregating savings in, say, pension funds and then deploying it to areas where it will earn a return. This investment is what generates economic activity - stimulating business growth and creating jobs. It also generates a return for those running, say, the pension fund to disperse to their members. Traditionally this large scale movement of money has happened only in developed markets. Developed markets are structured in a way that allows finance professionals to calculate the riskiness of an investment, and therefore feel comfortable parting with their capital with an expectation it will be paid back. Traditionally, the methodology for deciding whether to invest big pools of money in Africa has been done using the same framework as for developed markets. This hasn't bode well. In short the techniques for deciding how much money to invest have meant that only small amounts could be safely deployed. Lendable have taken a different approach. They are a technology enabled debt platform created to help non banking lenders scale. They use in-house software tools and algorithms to analyze loans and offer facilities that make sense for lenders based on their loan books. Show notes at: http://samfloy.com/podcast/big-data-lending-unlocking-commercial-capital-for-africa-with-daniel-goldfarb-from-lendable
