New Technology Making a Difference in Zambia
One Smile at a Time
For the last 18 months, Kenny Nyimbiri has served as a FINCA Zambia Loan Officer at the Northmead Branch in bustling Lusaka. While his day is often hectic with traveling to meet with FINCA clients and attending credit meetings, his goal each and every day is simple. As he says:
“what I’m meant for… (is) putting a smile on our clients.”
Kenny makes it easy and simple for our clients to access our financial services through a simple fingerprint, using biometric scans.
Those smiles often come when Kenny introduces our clients to an easier way to access our financial services. In a country where many people lack national ID cards, Kenny is teaching clients to use biometric scanners so that FINCA can easily identify them. Clients are registered at a FINCA branch by providing a digital scan of their fingerprint. Then, when they make transactions at a branch or an agent outlet, they sign in to their accounts by scanning their fingerprint. This simple but high-tech solution makes financial services easily accessible to everyone—even clients who cannot read. In the future, FINCA Zambia will continue to enroll their clients in the biometric system to scale up their outreach and provide financial services to even the most marginalized populations.
Every time clients walk out of the Northmead branch knowing their funds are safe and secure—and that security literally is in their hands—Kenny knows he’s earned their trust. Kenny joined the FINCA team because he wanted to help people, not just by providing affordable loans, but by spreading knowledge about the importance of savings as a way to move ahead in life.
Ultimately, he wants to help his clients escape the cycle of poverty. “We want to…help them grow into world-class business people,” says Kenny about his clients. Above all, Kenny is proud to work for FINCA because he is inspired by our mission and by the fact that our organization promotes sustainable and responsible financial practices. That’s how Kenny is creating brighter futures in Zambia….
One smile at a time
