IBM and Twiga Foods Introduce Blockchain-Based MicroFinancing for Food Kiosk Owners in Kenya

To test the new platform Twiga Foods and IBM ran a pilot at the end of last year with 220 small food kiosks, known locally as “mama mbogas” in Swahili, across Kenya

With blockchain, the lending process becomes transparent to all permissioned parties involved, from the lending bank to the borrower’s bank and the loan applicant themselves. Blockchains is helping to reduce fraud, since no one single party can append the blockchain without consensus from the entire network as well, employs a series of “smart contracts” which can be executed in real time, having the potential to significantly reduce the time it takes to manually process and issue a loan. NEF Fellows Abdigani Diriye, Research Manager at IBM Research Africa and Kommy Weldemariam Scientist & Manager, IBM Research Africa champion deployment of the first blockchain-based MicroFinancing platform (SME-Wallet) for Food Kiosk Owners! This is what we call Connecting Science to Humanity! Read more

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