East Africa’s Leasing Market leader, Vehicle and Equipment Leasing Limited (VAELL) has leased 43 Ford Rangers units to Airtel Uganda. The lease arrangement is a reflection of a strategy that focuses on growing the voice mass market offering and solidifying the business’ mobile and corporate data position in the market and the overall growth of Airtel market scope.  The lease will run for a period of 48 months.

Speaking while receiving the last batch of the 43 Ford Rangers double cabin pick-ups units, Anwar Soussa– Airtel Uganda’s  Managing Director  said, “We have had an impressive performance over the past years since we acquired Warid Telecom in May 2013 and rising to a power house of 7.2 Million clients.  We have made a decision to lease vehicles from VAELL as we heavily invest in our network expansion all in a bid to ensure clear network coverage and excellent customer service.” He added that the leased vehicles will aid Airtel Uganda to supplement their efforts towards having pocket friendly communication products and services. The leased vehicles will be instrumental in product distribution across Uganda, mostly in remote and rural areas, as well as for responding to clients’ technical needs.

Speaking at Airtel Uganda offices along Wampewo Avenue in Kampala Uganda, Anna Asio VAELL Uganda Leasing Manager said, VAELL has invested over Kes. 400, 0000,000 (ugx 13,320,000,000.00) in the Uganda market this year and this investment also demonstrates Vaell confidence in the telecommunications sector as being a market driver in the regional economy over the next decade.

Airtel Uganda joins other leading corporates within the E.A region like the Kenyan government and other leading companies that have adopted the vehicle leasing policy and reaping the benefits.

For many years, farmers in East Africa have had a hard time accessing farm machinery to work on their farms due to financial and credit limitations. As a result, most farmers are unable to purchase or maintain farm equipment due to the high costs involved. This in turn hinders farmer’s capacity to fully maximize on their farm’s output. In addition, equipment owners lose revenue as their farm equipment are only needed at a certain time of the year, rendering the equipment idle for the rest of year.

To overcome this, Quipbank trust ltd has come up with an innovative solution dubbed Tinga, a mobile based application which helps farmers book their preferred tractor service(s) at a click of a button and track it right to their farm. This is the latest agro-based product in the region that is seeking to connect farmers in search of tractor services to equipment.

For Mr. Samuel Tunoi, a wheat farmer in Narok East, the gains he has made are immense. He could not hide his joy as he spoke standing next to his tilled farm.

“Previously, I could only utilize 20 acres of my 200 acres’ farm and even that was exhausting. I could not afford the cost of buying a tractor and I would depend on middlemen who were unreliable, costly and the tractors broke down often. I booked chisel ploughing service using the mobile app and within a week they had mobilized a tractor, with a capable operator who was able to do the work efficiently. Am very happy and satisfied with their service,” said Mr. Tunoi who is among a network of over 3,000 farmers in Narok benefiting from Tinga.

Tinga is an SMS and mobile based application that enables farmers to access a host of services ranging from chiseling, no-till planting, ploughing, harrowing, planting, spraying, harvesting, lawn mowing among others. The application allows farmers to create an account, indicate their preferred service, location and the size of land to be worked on. When the request is received, and processed the tractor is dispatched from the nearest Tinga hub to work on the farmer’s farm within the allocated time frame.

Farmers end up slashing the cost of accessing tractor services by only paying for the number of acres worked on. They also receive free regular training on conservation farming and new technologies in agricultural mechanization, such as chiseling and no-till planting among others.

The platform further engages equipment owners through a partnership program that allows them to register their equipment and earn by getting paid for machinery which would have otherwise being laying idle in the shed.

Currently TINGA has engaged farmers in Narok, Nakuru, Bomet, Naivasha, Molo, Meru, Embu and is quickly expanding across the country. In it is expansion plan, Tinga has introduced a community ownership model which enables organizations and NGOs such as churches, SACCOS, cooperatives, chamas to own tractors and allow their members to earn discounted services.

For more info, visit : www.e-tinga.com

Vehicle and Equipment Leasing Ltd (VAELL) is seeking to raise $50 million in debt and equity funding to offshoot the growth of medium enterprises across Africa. East Africa’s economy has been heating up the global statistics with most economies growing at 4% and above. Kenya’s economy according to the latest world bank numbers is expected to grow at 5% in 2016. This growth is mainly being driven by medium businesses filling in the gap left by larger corporates and niche consumer markets.

Demand for vehicles is normally in excess of 100,000 units per year, however, in a surprising turn, this demand has dropped by over 20% in 2016 largely due to unavailable credit as banks have faced piling woes with three banks collapsing in the last 18 months and a recent slam on interest rates. Medium enterprises are caught in the middle as their credit needs cannot be fulfilled given the push back. Most banks have reported a decrease in lending.

On the other hand, VAELL, East Africa’s largest leasing firm has registered a large increase in demand and with an unstable banking environment VAELL is currently sharing up its off-shore and non-bank finance partners. In a show of might, VAELL recently signed up a $10M loan from PTA the COMESA bank supported by IFC and other African countries. However, this was swallowed up in less than 30 days, a key pointer to the growing demand for leasing services in East Africa.

VAELL has advised that it is cautiously seeking another 50M to facilitate their clients who need commercial vehicles, medical equipment and construction machines. Over the last 10 years VAELL has acquired over $100M worth of funding from investors with over $20M in taxes in 4 different countries with default ratio of less than 3%. The funding will be used to fuel medium enterprises and VAELL hopes to complete the fundraising by end of March 2017 with offshore banks from Europe, Asia, China and South Africa expected to provide the finance.

VAELL has partnered with banks such as Standard Chartered Bank, Stanbic bank, Ecobank, Bank of Africa among others to offer and structure leasing for their clients and manage repayments on behalf of the banks paying back rates of between 6-8% per annum.

Having established itself as the foremost expert in asset, plant leasing and acquisition with a total asset book of over $80M, VAELL has fully fledged subsidiaries in East Africa and recently opened subsidiaries in Zambia and Mozambique. VAELL also announced it had signed a referral partner in South Africa signaling its intention to focus on the less banked sectors of the continent where it has enjoyed a dominant position.

VAELL has been a winner in the KPMG Top 100 for four years in a row from 2012, coming second in 2014 and over the last two years coming into Club 101 (for those with a turnover of $10M and above). The Uganda and Tanzania subsidiaries have also won similar awards. VAELL has also won TITAN-Building Nations awards in South Africa in 2014 and 2016 for outstanding achievement.

VAELL has an outstanding team of young talent with a majority of the team being below 30 years of age.

August saw a banner month for Quipbank with a successful inaugural car sale. Dubbed bumper Friday, the event held on Friday, August 5^th 2016 aimed at off-loading ex-lease vehicles.

The highly anticipated sale was hosted at the Quipbank center on Mombasa road and attracted a considerable list of visitors keen on jumping on the offers and with deals starting from Ksh. 500,000 eager clients were quick to snap the cars on offer. Top cars that attracted buyers interest during the sale were Toyota Prado and Land cruiser which got multiple offers.

Apart from Quipbank’s ex-lease vehicles, there were also cars from different sellers including insurance companies, financial institution and car rental companies that participated in the car sale. A range of vehicles from different top brands were featured including Nissan, Toyota, Mitsubishi and Ford. The sale not only brought to the yard a whole new audience, improving Quipbank’s visibility, but it also managed to rope in Ksh.10 million from sales.

Speaking after the event, Jennifer Syombua, Quipbank General Manager said, “It was incredible to witness the charge in atmosphere at our center during the event. We made great sales by the end of the day, a testament to the great reception we received. We are currently scheduling another car sale in Uganda.”

So If you are in the market for a new car in Uganda mark the date, November 14^th and 15^th 2016 and like our social pages to get updates.