Safaricom yesterday announced it has invested in FarmDrive, a data analytics startup that connects smallholder farmers to financial services, thanks to its $1 million (about Sh103.5 million) Spark Venture Fund launched in 2014. FarmDrive is an app that can be accessed using smartphones and feature phones, and provides smallholder farmers with an alternative credit score model, allowing them easier access to financing. The mobile application seeks to address the lack of transparency in data availability that lenders say denies farmers access to loans. About 3,000 farmers have registered with FarmDrive and more than Sh13 million borrowed in loans, Safaricom said in a statement. Data collected from farmers is then fed into a credit-scoring algorithm alongside key satellite, agronomic, economic data, to generate credit scores for the farmers.

Source: The Star February 13, 2017 19:28 UTC