Kageni Wilson, a Kenyan entrepreneur who is serving as a mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs through an entrepreneurship program sponsored by one of Kenya’s largest banking groups, KCB Group, is one of the leading African entrepreneurs who are disrupting the financial services industry with technology and innovation.
Wilson, who is proficient in English, German, and Swahili, has a full schedule that includes managing businesses across Africa. In addition, he mentors aspiring business owners in Kenya and serves as an Outreach Ambassador, promoting entrepreneurship, technology, and business at seminars and hackathons held at universities and colleges all over the nation.
The Kenyan entrepreneur, known for encouraging young people to take risks in their passions, served as a founding partner at AllenHark Group, a collective of financial technology companies that developed plug-and-play software solutions for financial services delivery in East Africa.
Wilson held key leadership roles within the organization for over three years before departing in 2017. Currently, he is focused on increasing access to financial services in Africa. Earlier in his career, the Kenyan entrepreneur founded several startups, three of which were shut down after 18 months.
Wilson co-founded Finplus Group in 2017 with Bernard Banta, driven by his belief that everyone should have equal access to financial services and the ability to participate in the modern economy.
In the past five years, Finplus has processed over $1 billion in transactions across five emerging markets in Africa — Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Eswatini, and South Africa — thanks to its fully managed software, which allows financial services providers to operate efficiently and cost-effectively in any market. In fact, Wilson has stated that Finplus software helps an individual or business in Africa access credit or make a transaction every 10 seconds.
Finplus’ recent achievement, as it continues to provide white-label digital finance and vertical e-commerce software while creating financing opportunities for SMEs, is consistent with its goal of assisting in closing the massive $5-trillion credit deficit faced by SMEs in developing countries each year.
Over $1 billion in transactions have been processed as a result of its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, which makes it simple to create, launch quickly, and manage digital deposit, loan, and insurance products. This includes more than $750 million in loan disbursements and more than $250 million in allocated deposits.
