Mighty FIN is democratizing access to credit for underserved individuals and SMEs. #40Days40FinTechs Zambia and Malawi edition, Day 18

Access to affordable and reliable finance remains one of the biggest challenges faced by businesses across Africa. Be it east or west, north or south; everywhere you go, the issue of limited capital to scale remains unresolved.

While this is a problem for almost everyone, it mostly affects small businesses and sole proprietorships as these usually lack the prerequisites to enable them join the ‘borrowing brackets’. Nonetheless, different people are thinking outside the box and coming up with solutions to this long-standing problem.

In Zambia, Mighty FIN, read Mighty Finance as popularly referred to is contributing to easing the access to credit problem through extending digital, collateral free loans to individuals and small businesses that have been since time immemorial under-served or completely unserved by traditional financial institutions.

“We are an online business lending platform that provides credit to small businesses and individuals. We started off as an idea based on my 7 years banking experience from which I found out that even though SMEs were being banked by traditional lenders, they couldn’t access credit. Small businesses require credit on the go and this was a huge challenge for them to make the critical business decisions. Mighty FIN then was born to create a platform that conveys access to small businesses in quick, affordable and flexible manner,” Vwanganji Bowa, the Founder and CEO of Mighty Finance said.

She added “We started as a traditional micro finance that was offering manual operations. But because of COVID-19, we sat back and pivoted to see how we could reach out to our customers. We then transitioned in to a FinTech in 2022. Our customers are mostly underserved SMEs and Individuals. We have a primary but not limited focus on women founded, owned and led businesses. Since 2021, we have been able to disburse over USD 250,000 worth of loans to over 5600 customers.”

Even so, Bowa noted that the main challenges faced by FINTECHs like Mighty FIN are Financial Literacy Gap, Poor Connectivity, Low Smartphone Usage, and Limited Capital to provide last-mile financial technology solutions.

She applauded HiPipo and COMESA Business Council (CBC) for partnering to roll out the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative across the COMESA region noting that this initiative is a providing a platform for FinTech players to showcase their innovations, improve the products and reach wide markets.

Mighty FIN featured on Day 18 of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative; Zambia and Malawi edition. The roll-out of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative in Zambia and Malawi followed its success in East Africa. Over the past 5 years, the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative has featured over 200 FinTech stories from Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda. This initiative has also engaged hundreds of end-users and shared their stories with millions worldwide.

The primary objective of this initiative is to support and showcase innovative FinTech giants and start-ups from across Africa, with a focus on promoting financial inclusion and economic growth, in addition to giving start-ups access to the resources they need to develop new and innovative financial solutions that can benefit underserved populations. Such resources include but are not limited to Level One Project guidelines, Mojaloop Open Source Software and Inclusive Finance systems, etc.