KUSSCO: Good News for Small Sacco’s as a New Software Company is established

Amina Faki

“IRNET Kenya (ICK) will run as a separate entity which will offer a pay-per-use facility for small and medium sized Sacco members,” said the Managing director George Ototo on the establishment of a software company by Kenya Union Savings and Credit Co-operatives (Kuscco)

The Union came up with the software company to enable both the small and medium co-operative societies to offer mobile money banking services.

According to Kuscco, it will house the portal of the new Information Technology (IT). The move is to allow smalls Sacco’s have the leverage to compete against larger peers who own digital banking platforms.

Mr. Ototo said that the future of the financial services is digital banking and ICK gives the small Sacco’s across the country a platform to offer services to their members securely via the web and on mobile phone apps. He expounded that each Sacco will have its secure portal, thereby saving them the need to acquire Information Communication and Technology infrastructure and cost of employing staff to man the facility.

According to an article in the Business Daily, Kuscco owns 75 percent of ICK, 61 per cent stake was donated by the World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU) at no cost while Kuscco bought a 14 per cent stake at an undisclosed amount. The rest of the shares are held by the WOCCU.

The new software company is a cloud-based computing system that is accessible from the internet-enabled devices like the computers, I-phones etc.

The services include mobile banking option which allows members to access financial services from their initial Saccos.