Sub-Saharan African credit provider Unifi is enabling its clients to apply for short-term personal loans and have the money in the bank within minutes. Their impressive speed puts Unifi a few steps ahead of similar products in this space and makes life easy for customers in underserved markets.
“While all our customers are formally employed, like most households around the world right now, they are struggling to stretch their salaries from one payday to the next. Our fast, easily accessible loans give them a welcome boost when there are unforeseen and extra expenses,” says Unifi Africa COO, Graham Crawford.
Unifi has 40 branches across Zambia and Uganda, with its first branch in Kenya opening soon. They offer an in-person loan application at their branches for first-time customers, after which customers can make repayments or apply for their next loans on a self-service-basis using Unifi’s USSD app, the Uniapp. Unifi also has a 100% digital offering in South Africa.
Through the Unifi website, customers in the South African market can apply for a short-term personal loan by filling out an application form and automatically sharing their proof of income through a secure online portal. Unifi’s smart system then conducts an automatic affordability assessment and is subsequently able to instantly approve the application, with the funds transferred immediately into the customer’s bank account.
Meanwhile, Unifi customers in the rest of Africa benefit from Unifi’s central loans management system, which allows the company to process and approve a customer’s application in 20 minutes at the branches, and even quicker when applying on the Uniapp, where the loan can be paid out instantly via mobile money. This is a significant turnaround time that signifies Unifi’s commitment to their customers.
“Simplicity is key and one way we live up to our motto of ‘making life easy’, is to make our customer journey as swift and smooth as possible. This offers a solution to customers in markets where it’s traditionally not been as fast or easy to get access to credit. We’re proud to have cut the paperwork and the waiting time, and to be able to approve credit at the point of contact through outstanding customer service, data analytics and tech innovations,” explains Crawford.
Going forward, Unifi has its sights set on providing instant credit facilities to one million customers by 2025, having already assisted 300 000 across South Africa, Zambia and Uganda.
“We’re proud to offer financial relief within minutes, and we’re enthusiastically looking forward to the future and to bringing even faster solutions to even more customers around Africa,” concludes Crawford.