Money

From the archives: Senator Obama Visits K-Rep Bank In 2006

BY · July 26, 2015 05:07 pm

Did you know that President Barack Obama visited K-rep bank in 2006 when he was the Senator of Illinois?

On the third day of his 2006 tour in Kenya, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois greeted representatives of K-Rep Bank, a microfinance institution operating throughout Kenya. After talking to beneficiaries of the program in Nairobi’s Kibera slum, Obama commended K-Rep’s work and added, “The Kenyan Government needs to support such programs. It is a wonderful model replicated in many parts of the world.”

The Kenya Association of Microfinance Institutions estimated “lenders are only meeting about 10% of an annual demand for $803 million in small-scale loans.” Over half of the Kenyan population of 32 million subsists on less than $1 a day. Obama believes microfinance programs such as K-Rep’s “give them {Kenyans} the opportunity to make it to the next stage.”

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K-Rep Bank, established in 2000, has received almost $1 million from part-owner ShoreBank in Chicago. K-Rep reported a gross loan portfolio of $34.1 million, total assets of $52.2 million, total equity of $10.9 million, return on assets of 1.03%, and return on equity of 4.32% to the MIX Market last year.