How We Built a Fintech App That Processed KSH 2B in Year One
A deep dive into the architecture, challenges, and decisions behind one of our most technically demanding projects — a mobile lending platform for East African SMEs.
When PesaLink SME approached us in early 2024, they had a demanding brief: a mobile-first lending platform that could onboard SME applicants, perform automated credit scoring using M-Pesa transaction history, disburse loans within 4 hours of approval, and handle collections — all while meeting CBK digital lending guidelines.
The core technical tension was between speed and auditability. Loan disbursement needed to be near-instant, but every action in a CBK-regulated product requires a complete, tamper-proof audit trail. We resolved this with an event-sourcing architecture.
Traditional credit scoring is useless for SMEs without formal credit history. We built a behavioural model using 6 months of M-Pesa transaction data — 40+ features covering transaction frequency, merchant diversity, income stability, and payment pattern consistency.