Kenya: Finance Should Work Around How Customers Actually Earn, says Watu Kenya's Damien Gueroult

What the report says

Watu Kenya Country Manager Damien Gueroult says lenders serving people outside traditional banking need to design products around how customers actually earn, use assets and repay, rather than around salaried-borrower assumptions. In an AllAfrica interview published Sept. 11, 2026, he said many of Watu’s clients in Kenya and other East African markets are informal workers or first-time borrowers who earn daily and may lack a formal credit history.

Gueroult, who moved into the Kenya role after leading Watu’s operations in Uganda, described boda boda riders as entrepreneurs using financed motorcycles as tools for income, not consumer purchases. He said the same logic applies to smartphones, which many customers are using for the first time as productive devices that can improve work opportunities, productivity and daily life. Watu said it relies on identity and personal data checks, then builds repayment records over time, rather than depending only on conventional credit scores.

He also pointed to lessons from Watu’s earlier expansion in motorcycle finance, saying the company learned that growth must be matched by strong risk controls. The interview comes as Kenya develops its first framework for asset-backed lending, an area Gueroult said should include customer protections for informal earners. He also said Watu’s financing of electric motorcycles follows the same principle: adoption depends on whether the economics work for riders. The broader point, he said, is that finance for underserved customers has to begin with their real economic circumstances.