Click to Borrow: Digital Lending Surges 📈

Welcome to this week’s edition of ፍራንክ Digest!

Your Weekly Brief on all things Finance and Investing. Quick, enjoyable reads for busy professionals in 5 minutes or less.

Topics this week:

• ⚡ BUZZ: Meet ‘Efoyta’, the Newest Digital Lending App on the Block

• 🪜 Innovation Over Inheritance: Business Succession Plans

• 💰 Revolving Riches: The Power Of Equb in the Modern Era

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BUZZ: Move over Michu, Wegagen's 'Efoyta' has entered the building 🏢

እፎይ!

That’s what Wegagen is expecting everyone to say these days: by partnering with Kifiya Technologies PLC, the same partner in crime for COOPs Michu platform launch in 2022, Wegagen Bank has become the latest of the big financial institutions to enter the digital lending scene.

The app, conveniently called ‘Efoyta’, offers loans between 5000 and 50,000 Birr. Efoyta Wase and Melegna are the two types of loans being advertised with a 0.95% ad 3.75% daily interest rate, respectively. Oh and add to that a 2% access fee since…you know...capital.

Wegagen hopes that these loans could help MSME (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) to tackle challenges surrounding working capital amid a shortage of ጥሬ ገንዘብ experienced by the majority of financial institutions.

It's also betting that businesses can leverage the simplicity of the app to enable employees access to what it calls ‘emergency loans’. Essentially deviating the risk factor of the individual employee and relying on the financial soundness of the borrowing entity.

It seems as though the banking sector is finally waking up and realizing that micro and small businesses are the lifeblood the country, partnerships like these will be a much more frequent occurrence in the near future.

🤔 Did you know? When lending started in ancient Mesopotamia in 3000 BC, borrowers would pay off their debts with food (farmers would borrow seeds and then share their crops).