Kenyans who use mobile money lending apps have been warned to be careful not to find themselves on the list of Credit Reference Bureau (CRB) as it would affect their qualification for certain jobs.
According to a recent report by the Standard Digital, the TransUnion Credit Reference Bureau has approximated that between 2.3 million and 2.5 million people have defaulted to pay loans on monthly basis.
The TransUnion CRB Chief Executive Officer Billy Owino however blamed the increased number of defaulters to fraud where information of other people is used to apply for loans without their knowledge.
“Fraud is becoming a big problem. We are having too many cases of defaults reported that are coming out of fraudulent applications. However, those are cleared easily but this depends on when,” Owino stated as quoted by the Standard Digital.
He went ahead to warn Kenyans to be careful when giving out their personal information like Id number and phone numbers in public places such as in the visitors' books of organizations.
Owino also revealed that 1.9 million out of every 108 million applications for loans are fraudulent.
“There are about 108 million mobile loan applications that happen annually, that would mean 1.9 million applications are fraudulent. Not all these applications may go through but even if half of the fraudulent ones are successful it means millions of shillings, it is a serious problem,” he explained as quoted by the Standard Digital.
Kenyans were also advised to seek the freely offered CRB reports at least thrice a year.