Saccos recorded a 13.41 per cent increase in total deposits to Sh431.46 billion, a new sectoral report shows.
The SACCO Societies Regulatory Authority (SASRA) in the annual supervision report for the year ended December 2020 notes that the saccos recorded an aggregate asset base of Sh627.68 billion.
The saccos reported a loan portfolio of Sh474.77 billion representing a yearly increase of 13.16 per cent.
While releasing the Report and commenting on the performance of the DT SACCOs, SASRA Acting CEO Peter Njuguna said the report is a testament to the fact that DT-SACCOs continues to be a critical source of access to credit facilities by many Kenyans, particularly the household economies as well as the SME’s.
“The report reveals that in the aggregate, DT-SACCOs were able to defy the disruptions caused in the national economy by the impact of Covid-19 pandemic and the associated restrictions,” said Njuguna.
Despite the stellar performance of the DT-SACCOs, during a very tough economic year, the report highlighted some of the challenges that continue to hamper the growth and development of DT-SACCOs.
The perennial delays in remittances of deductions top the list, with a sum of Sh5.04 billion being owed to the sector during the year 2020, which is an increase from the sum of Sh3.87 billion recorded during the year 2019.
Low usage of ICT and other technologically enabled mobile devices in the provision of services; as well as short-term illiquidity needs resulting in delays by some DT-SACCOs to make prompt refunds of members’ deposits are some of the teething problems facing the subsector.
In the meantime, the Authority shall soon be publishing the list of non-withdrawable deposit-taking SACCOs which have complied with the Act and the Regulations, 2020 whose transition period lapsed on June 30 2021.
So far, a total of 188 applications have been received, out of which the Authority has issued 50 SACCOs with authorization certificates.
The remaining applications are under review and will be concluded on or before September 15 2021.
According to the sectoral report, the Authority is currently regulating a total of 175 Deposit-Taking (DT) SACCOs which serves a membership of slightly over 5.4 million Kenyans.
