Boosting the Financial Health of Low-Income Workers in Kenya Through a Holistic Banking Platform
Formal financial inclusion is high in Kenya and has consistently increased over the last few decades: 84% of adult Kenyans in 2021 (vs 27% in 2006) had access to financial services and products from formal institutions (e.g., microfinance institutions, savings unions, banks, and mobile money providers).
However, while financial inclusion has improved, financial health has deteriorated in this same period with only 17% of Kenyans able to adequately and comfortably meet their day-to-day needs, cope with shocks, and have the ability to invest in future goals like saving for old age.
THE POWER SOLUTION
Power is a holistic digital financial services platform that offers underserved formal and informal workers a solution to build long-term financial well-being. Power allows low-income workers (individuals that are full-time, part-time, contractors, or gig workers) to take control of actively improving their financial health with a set of tools, linked to workers’ incomes, to ensure the workers are financially sustainable.
By partnering with employers, banks, and service providers (such as insurance), they are able to provide services that are trusted, secure, and right fit to each consumer’s needs.
Power can offer four products by leveraging a variety of datasets:
1. Pay: workers can access a salary advance of 20–50% of their earned wages each month
2. Borrow: short to medium-term loans designed for repayment success
3. Protect: Provide low-cost insurance which can be financed if needed
4. Save: enable workers to streamline savings contributions directly from their earnings and into interest-bearing accounts with regulated partners.
“Power has had a positive impact on my life because I’m able to access instant funds, especially salary advances, and the good thing is that it’s actually integrated with our HR payroll system, so there’s no hassle of paying back, it’s done automatically. It’s given me a good impact.”
Titus Chege — Penda Health employee | Penda Health is a Power client
THESIS AREA — INCLUSIVE FINTECH
Power’s solution is directly linked to Mercy Corps Ventures’ Inclusive Fintech Thesis, applying core principles:
- innovative user experience education and learning
- embedded and modular fintech
- consumer and micro, small, and medium-sized enterprise finance
“Power offers built-in budgeting tools, financial health scores (and incentives to improve), and is continuously developing literacy tools, offering a holistic digital platform that has a clear immediate benefit for the employer and employee. Using this approach, the company is building consumer habits towards savings and low-risk credit, building true financial health and resilience.”
Hetal Patel, Director of Investments at Mercy Corps Ventures
Power wants to extend its impact and serve the larger, lower threeincome quintile segments, many of whom are semi or informally employed. They have partnered with the Jobtech Alliance, to collaborate with Unveel and offer the Power suite of financial services to informal gig workers on Bolt, Uber, and Glovo in Kenya. Power will leverage the Jobtech support to right fit its app for gig-economy workers and develop a precise strategy for customer acquisition, support, and retention.
What excites us most about Power is the team’s relentless commitment to understanding the end user needs and letting that research drive growth.
“Since inception, we have been focused on empowering the workforce to take control of their financial well-being. Our customers aspire to improve their lives and we are absolutely dedicated to developing the tools to achieve exactly this. We are excited to have investors like Mercy Corps Ventures that understand the impact that well-designed digital products can have on our customers!”
Brian Dempsey, Founder & CEO of Power
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