NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 19 – Kenya Tea Development Agency’s microfinance service subsidiary Greenland Fedha is set to embark on biometric customer registration.
The company says the move seeks to help the firm move to paperless loan processing, increase customer data security and ease the identification process.
The service will be applied to the firm’s over 160,000 customers, who are mainly smallholders and tea farmers.
“All existing and potential GFL customers will be registered on the new biometric system in an exercise that kicks off in August and will take place in all the company’s offices countrywide,” says the firm.
The firm is among seven other subsidiaries of KTDA, which have helped steer the Agency to profitability.
The Agency’s after-tax profit rose by 59 percent to Sh1.84 billion in the year ending June 30, 2018 with revenues rising by 13.4 percent to Sh26 billion as a result of higher sales.
KTDA, which earns a management fee from managed tea factory companies, currently has eight subsidiaries enabling it to earn from other activities such as value addition and warehousing charges.
Chai Trading, for example, specializes in warehousing tea and logistics of the auction and shipping of the commodity, while Greenland Fedha gives cheap credit to farmers.
