{"id":12124,"date":"2026-01-14T02:53:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T02:53:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=12124"},"modified":"2026-01-14T02:53:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T02:53:38","slug":"bring-on-blockchain-only-3-of-africans-qualify-for-mortgage-financing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=12124","title":{"rendered":"Bring on blockchain: Only 3% of Africans qualify for mortgage financing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/iframe.iono.fm\/e\/1634598?layout=modern\" width=\"100%\" height=\"170\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.<\/p>\n<p>Less than 3% of Africans qualify for mortgage financing, which explains why across the continent you see partially built structures dotted across the landscape, waiting for the next cash injection to finish the project.<\/p>\n<p>Read:<br \/>South Africa reviews prime rate used to price R6.2trn of credit<br \/>Hidden R3trn property wealth could unlock SA growth and inclusion<\/p>\n<p>Most houses in Africa are built with cash. It\u2019s a slow, grinding process and the houses are often sub-par when built.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>It\u2019s easier for informal sector workers to get unsecured lending than mortgage financing.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Is there a better way?<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a fascinating test case underway on the Nairobi Securities Exchange to raise housing finance for the poor, and it involves blockchain and a company called Empowa, which has come up with a novel rent-to-own model that even street hawkers and informal sector workers can afford.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, Empowa struck a partnership with the exchange focused on developing a Cardano blockchain-based platform for tokenising real-world assets (RWAs), specifically to address affordable housing finance in Kenya and across Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Listen\/read:<br \/>Providing housing to the informal sector using the blockchain [2025]<br \/>Houses for Africa: How Empowa has changed the landscape [2024]<br \/>Using blockchain and the Airbnb model to unlock home ownership in Africa [2023]<\/p>\n<p>Empowa CEO Glen Jordan explains why the bank mortgage model has had such little impact in Africa.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cA mortgage is fit for purpose for the formally employed,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cIt doesn\u2019t work for those who are outside of the formal employment sector, or for those who supplement their income through the informal sector.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you look at anybody across Africa, everybody\u2019s got a hustle. Even if they\u2019re employed, they\u2019ve got a hustle. Everybody\u2019s got a side hustle. Everybody\u2019s supplementing their income.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe challenge with that is that more than 85% of that is unrecorded. And therefore, when you\u2019re trying to supply housing finance, the challenge is obviously that\u2019s you can\u2019t get visibility of that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s why we have such low figures of access to housing.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThe reality is that most people are paying a lot of money for housing,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cBecause of this challenge, the lack of supply has actually meant that people are paying a lot of money for poor quality housing. So the cost-to-quality ratio that you\u2019re getting of what you\u2019re actually paying for is ridiculous, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The blockchain is a perfect tool to fix this problem.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Empowa received some funding from Cardano that will help it scale its low-cost (and climate resilient) housing programmes in Africa, now operating in seven countries.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The blockchain is an immutable ledger operating in real time that tracks who\u2019s making rental payments, who\u2019s late with their payments and how much funds are received into the property pool.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>It\u2019s ironic, says Jordan, that the default risks recorded by Empowa are way lower than the non-performing mortgage loans reported by the banks (averaging 3-6%).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>It demonstrates that there is a viable \u2013 and vibrant \u2013 market in the informal sector for quality housing.<\/p>\n<p>What it requires is a non-traditional approach and the kind of cash flow visibility provided by the blockchain.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe [risk of default] is significantly lower because we don\u2019t have to go through that legal process because it\u2019s a tenancy agreement, not a mortgage. The distribution of the capital is actually through the developers, not through the bank. So that\u2019s the effect, if you like, that\u2019s the distribution of the capital mechanism. So the ownership is retained [by Empowa until the loan is fully paid].<\/p>\n<p>Read: Blockchain is quietly powering everyday life across Africa<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo we\u2019re distributing the capital through the developer and if somebody doesn\u2019t pay, like a normal lease agreement, you have a deposit and as soon as it\u2019s acknowledged that they\u2019re not paying, that process then starts to get that person out of that lease agreement and to get somebody else in. So ironically, the risk in this environment is not from the individual payer, but it\u2019s actually in the pipeline.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>We need a Marshall Plan for SA\u2019s townships<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight from 1994, at the time of transition, I have said we need a Marshall Plan to invest into townships,\u201d says Jordan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe challenge has been how to invest into townships in a way that meets the needs of investors, that provides returns. This has been the challenge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd the reality is, a lot of people say the current affordable housing crisis around the world is unprecedented. We\u2019ve never experienced this before. We did actually.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cAfter the Second World War, a lot of the housing stock had been destroyed. There was a severe housing shortage, with returning servicemen. But there was a political will to address it, and finance was made available to address it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This was a key reason behind the economic boom that followed the end of the Second World War \u2013 the huge demand and financing made available for housing.<\/p>\n<p>Listen: Empowering South Africa\u2019s \u201cmissing middle\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jordan says Empowa\u2019s model makes it possible at last to invest safely in township housing in a way that needs the needs of informal sector workers and investors looking for inflation-beating returns.<\/p>\n<p>For previous Moneyweb Crypto Pod episodes,\u00a0click\u00a0here.<\/p>\n<p>You can also sign up for our\u00a0crypto newsletter.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script data-cfasync=\"false\">\n            !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n            {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n                n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n                if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n                n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n                t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n                s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n                'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n            fbq('init', '779812924991616');\n            fbq('track', 'PageView');\n        <\/script>#Bring #blockchain #Africans #qualify #mortgage #financing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You can also listen to this po&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[2768,1211,5156,5705,5293,2661],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12124"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}