Tazu Credit

TAZU CREDIT LIMITED presents an early-stage financial profile that combines eight months of actual operating data with a model-driven projection through 2028. The preparatory pre-launch period from incorporation on 29 August 2025 to licensing on 24 December 2025 was funded entirely from the owners' capital, with no lending, no loan portfolio and no external debt, and the company entered its operational phase at licensing with a starting cash position of EUR 122,300. Its first eight months of lending (January to August 2026) produced 140 loans, EUR 349,081 of disbursement and EUR 41,864 of revenue, closing at a pre-tax profit of EUR 4,603 — approximately 11.0% of revenue — profitable within its first operating year, with no credit losses recorded over the period. The financial model then projects a pre-tax profit in every forecast year — EUR 57,207 in 2026, EUR 973,334 in 2027 and EUR 538,310 in 2028 — as the loan book scales to a peak of EUR 1.49 million at end-2026 on the EUR 2,450,000 external programme and then normalises as that programme is repaid. Interest income rises from EUR 313,714 in 2026 to EUR 2,174,383 in 2027 — a 6.9× increase — before easing to EUR 1,341,659 in 2028 as the funded book is wound down to a level supported by the company's own capital.

All figures are presented in EUR. The company operates in Kenyan shillings, converted to euro at a single fixed assumed rate of approximately KES 149.9 per euro applied uniformly to all periods, so that no inter-period exchange-rate movement affects the euro series; because the shilling floats against the euro, the euro equivalents carry a currency-translation sensitivity for a euro-based investor that does not affect the shilling-denominated economics of the loan book. Kenyan corporate income tax of 30.0% is applied to cumulative positive taxable profit, with pre-trading and early-month losses carried forward against subsequent profits. The starting cash position of EUR 122,300 at licensing comprises the paid-in share capital of approximately EUR 3,336 (KES 500,000) and additional funds contributed by the owners from personal savings and treated as equity rather than as a shareholder loan. The forecast horizon (September 2026 to December 2028) reflects launch-stage assumptions for pricing, default behaviour, portfolio scaling and external debt drawing; the eight months of actual data allow the model's early assumptions to be compared against initial operating experience, but not yet against a full seasoned cycle, as cohort default performance will emerge only over subsequent quarters.

Pre-launch period (August–December 2025)

The period from incorporation on 29 August 2025 to licensing on 24 December 2025 was a preparatory phase in which the company obtained the necessary approvals and registrations, developed its credit and compliance framework, and prepared its web lending platform. The regulatory milestones culminated on 24 December 2025, when the Central Bank of Kenya issued both the approval of the company name and the Digital Credit Provider licence; the company is additionally registered as a data controller with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner. No loan portfolio or external debt existed during this period, and the limited set-up costs incurred were funded entirely from the owners' capital. Lending commenced in January 2026, within weeks of the licence being granted, and the operational phase accordingly opens from an unencumbered starting position.

Current actuals (January–August 2026)

The individual line accounts for 118 of 140 loans by number — 84.3% — and for 71.1% of disbursement by value, with an average ticket of approximately EUR 2,102 that is an order of magnitude above the mass-market digital-credit ticket, while the business line carries a larger average ticket of approximately EUR 4,592 on 22 loans. Over the eight months the company recorded revenue of EUR 41,864, against direct lending costs of EUR 4,162 and operating expenses of EUR 33,099, closing with a pre-tax profit of EUR 4,603 — approximately 11.0% of revenue — and, after a tax charge of EUR 335 on the cumulative profit reached in August, net income of EUR 4,269. No loan defaults were recorded over the period: every exposure was personally underwritten, and at a volume of 140 loans the quality of the client base can be maintained through individual selection. The loan book closed August 2026 at EUR 116,710, well below cumulative disbursement, reflecting the rapid turnover of the short-tenor individual line.

These eight months constitute the company's only operating history and should not be linearly extrapolated. The zero realised loss rate is a function of scale as much as of underwriting: a book of 140 hand-picked borrowers is not representative of the funnel the company must open to deploy the external programme, and as monthly origination multiplies, the client pool widens and default levels will rise toward market-normal behaviour. The model accordingly does not extrapolate the actual loss experience: it introduces line-level default assumptions of 8.0% (individual) and 4.0% (business) from the point of scaling in September 2026, tapering to 4.0% and 2.0% by 2028 as underwriting seasons — a deliberately conservative break from the actuals rather than a continuation of them. The longer-tenor business cohorts had also not fully seasoned within the actual period.

Forecast income statement (September 2026 – December 2028)

Because the short-tenor individual book turns over several times a year, a conventional yield on average outstanding portfolio would not be representative; the operating metrics above are expressed against revenue, issuance and the year-end balance sheet. The company is profitable at the full-year level from its first operating year — the actual January–August profit is carried into a strongly scaling final quarter of 2026 — in contrast to the launch-year losses typical of the sector. Revenue rises to 2027 on portfolio scaling supported by external funding and then declines into 2028, as the external debt is repaid in full by October 2027 and the funded loan book contracts, reducing interest income even as new issuance continues at a high level. Total issuance scales from EUR 2,794,081 in 2026 to EUR 7,547,000 in 2027 and EUR 5,620,000 in 2028, with the mix remaining individual-led throughout — the individual line's share of issuance moving from 63.3% to 70.8% and then 66.2%, with the business line carrying the balance. The outstanding book peaks at EUR 1.49 million at end-2026, contracts to EUR 0.81 million at end-2027 as the programme is repaid, and rebuilds to EUR 1.17 million at end-2028 on retained earnings.

Direct lending costs and operating expenses both grow with activity — direct costs from EUR 31,607 to EUR 72,760 and operating expenses from EUR 101,699 to EUR 534,000 — the latter reflecting the planned headcount build of personal client managers and in-house IT staff. The cost-to-income ratio improves from 32.4% in 2026 to 20.3% in 2027 and rises to 39.8% in 2028, because 2028 revenue normalises after the leveraged 2027 peak while the expanded team is retained; the direct-cost ratio falls from 10.1% to approximately 5% as volumes scale. Projected loss-on-issuance rises from 2.3% in 2026 to 6.3% in 2027 before easing to 3.5% in 2028 — a deliberate departure from the zero realised losses of the first eight months, reflecting the widening of the client funnel as volumes multiply; the model relies on assumed underwriting seasoning only gradually, rather than on maintaining launch-period loss levels at scale.

Leverage is moderate and self-extinguishing. The debt-to-equity ratio peaks at approximately 8.8× around the turn of 2026–2027 — external debt of EUR 1,400,000 over equity of approximately EUR 159,904 at end-2026 — and falls to nil by October 2027 as the programme is repaid in full; no debt is carried in 2028. The equity base is small, at EUR 122,300 at launch and approximately EUR 159,904 at end-2026, which limits the capacity to absorb adverse credit or liquidity outcomes, and no further equity injection is assumed over the forecast: the company funds the portfolio build from the external programme and repays it from operating cash flow, with equity rebuilding through retained earnings to approximately EUR 841,238 at end-2027 and EUR 1,218,055 at end-2028. The year-end cash position remains positive throughout — EUR 73,354 at end-2026, EUR 30,288 at end-2027 and EUR 53,055 at end-2028 — with materially lower intra-year troughs. Kenyan corporate tax of 30.0% applies on cumulative positive profit, at an effective rate of approximately 28.2% in 2026 — reflecting the carry-forward of the 2025 pre-trading loss — and 30.0% thereafter.

External funding stack

The external funding comprises a programme of EUR 2,450,000 drawn in fourteen tranches — two per month from September 2026 to March 2027 — structured as bullets at two pricing bands: EUR 1,400,000 across seven tranches of EUR 200,000 at 22.9% per annum over five months, and EUR 1,050,000 across seven tranches of EUR 150,000 at 16.9% per annum over seven months, a weighted-average cost of approximately 20.3% per annum. This is an expensive cost of capital that consumes a meaningful share of the spread and would become a tighter constraint if portfolio economics weakened. The tranches are not refinanced on maturity: each is repaid as it falls due, so the stack peaks at EUR 2,050,000 in March 2027 and amortises to nil by October 2027. Total interest over the life of the programme is EUR 237,096 — EUR 59,292 in 2026 and EUR 177,804 in 2027 — and repayments of EUR 2,450,000 across February to October 2027 retire the facility in full, leaving the company debt-free from October 2027. This profile — moderate leverage drawn to fund the portfolio build and then fully repaid — distinguishes the company's funding from a continuously refinanced debt stack, and is the principal reason both interest cost and the funded portfolio decline after the 2027 peak.

Loan serviceability — EUR 2,450,000 funding programme

The facility assessed in this memorandum is the company's entire external funding programme of EUR 2,450,000 rather than a single tranche. Interest on the programme totals EUR 237,096 and is covered by operating earnings in both periods in which it falls: earnings before interest and tax cover the cost of funding approximately 1.9 times in the September–December 2026 drawdown period and approximately 6.5 times in 2027. Interest is therefore serviced from operating profit rather than from cash reserves or new drawings — a position distinct from a launch-stage lender that must fund interest from capital during a loss-making ramp.

Principal amortises through the staggered five- and seven-month maturities of the tranches — EUR 2,450,000 repaid across February to October 2027 — with each tranche repaid from the company's own cash generation as it falls due. The model assumes no refinancing, and the external debt balance reaches nil by October 2027; principal repayment accordingly does not depend on the availability of new debt or on rolling the facility, a structural distinction from a single bullet that must be refinanced at maturity.

The monthly cash-flow projection shows the cash position remaining positive in every month of the drawdown and repayment period, supported by portfolio collections that run at EUR 0.4–0.9 million per month through the repayment window (peaking at EUR 912,528 in April 2027); the tightest pre-programme point — approximately EUR 6,370 at end-August 2026 — is relieved by the first drawdowns in September. Within the programme window, month-end buffers fall below EUR 10,000 at three points, and the lowest of them — approximately EUR 8,416 in August 2027 and EUR 558 in October 2027 — fall in the closing months of the repayment schedule, when the bulk of the programme has already been retired and the residual obligation is EUR 300,000 or less, rather than at the peak of the debt stack. These points also lie more than a year into a static projection: monthly issuance is the company's largest discretionary outflow, many times the size of the thinnest buffer, so in-month liquidity remains manageable by pacing new lending against collections as the year actually develops. The investor's effective exposure is therefore to the company's delivery of the projected collections and loss rates over the September 2026 to October 2027 window, rather than to the availability of refinancing at maturity. The principal financial risks are launch-stage execution and credit risks — a loss rate projected to rise from zero as volumes scale, a short operating history, a small equity base, the euro-translation sensitivity of a shilling-denominated return, and the dependence of the 2027 peak result on leverage that is subsequently withdrawn — rather than structural business-model risks. If the model's loss, issuance and cost assumptions are delivered as projected, the facility is serviced on both interest and principal; a material deterioration in the loss trajectory or the issuance ramp would compress earnings and the margin of safety.

Growth Plan of TAZU CREDIT LIMITED

TAZU CREDIT LIMITED enters its growth phase from a position defined by completed regulatory authorisation and eight months of operating data: incorporation on 29 August 2025, licensing by the Central Bank of Kenya as a Digital Credit Provider on 24 December 2025 (Licence No. CBK/DCP/2025/189), and lending from January 2026 funded entirely from the owners' capital. Over its first eight months the company originated 140 loans for EUR 349,081 of disbursement with no recorded defaults and a profitable result — the first directional validation of the premium-segment underwriting and service model. The growth plan extends and scales this same operating model — two product lines, the same web platform and M-Pesa rails, and the same personally reviewed underwriting — at materially higher volume, organised around two reinforcing directions: the individual (consumer) line, the strategic focus, at premium tickets and short tenors, and the business (SME) line at larger tickets and longer tenors under manual due diligence. The strategic logic is depth of penetration in Kenya across the current product set; no new products or geographies are a precondition for the plan. Technology is deliberately positioned within this logic not as a sales driver but as a platform of maximum borrower comfort: the planned development programme adds functions built around convenience and repayment discipline, whose purpose is to hold default rates low and retain the premium client base as the book scales, complementing rather than replacing the personal relationship at the centre of the model.

The strategic timing is supported by the structural factors documented in the Market Assessment section — formal credit under-penetrated at approximately 31.6% of GDP (2023), an average licensed-DCP loan of approximately EUR 120 that leaves the mid-ticket premium niche thinly served against TAZU's average of EUR 2,102, and an MSME finance gap of approximately EUR 17.8 billion (USD 19.3 billion) — combined with monetary easing, as the Central Bank rate was cut to 8.75% and private-sector credit returned to growth, and a tightening licensing regime that progressively favours a licensed, compliant operator. The quantitative trajectory is documented in the financial model: total issuance scales from EUR 349,081 over the first eight months through EUR 2,794,081 in full-year 2026 to EUR 7,547,000 in 2027 and EUR 5,620,000 in 2028; the outstanding portfolio peaks at EUR 1.49 million at end-2026, contracts to EUR 0.81 million at end-2027 as the debt-funded book is wound down, and rebuilds to EUR 1.17 million at end-2028 on retained earnings; and the operating result is a pre-tax profit in every forecast year — EUR 57,207 in 2026, EUR 973,334 in 2027 and EUR 538,310 in 2028.

Business line growth

The individual line is the priority and the larger contributor throughout — issuance of EUR 1,769,057 in 2026 (63.3% of the total) growing to EUR 5,343,000 in 2027 (70.8%) before easing to EUR 3,720,000 in 2028 (66.2%), with the individual book reaching EUR 881,750 outstanding at end-2026. It is scaled under the company's established risk discipline rather than through funnel-widening automation: tighter entry rules for new borrowers, a graduated starting limit that rises only as a clean repayment record is established, and a personal review of every exposure, with retention built on the personal-manager relationship and the platform's planned comfort and repayment-discipline functions rather than on price competition. The business line grows in parallel — issuance of EUR 1,025,024 in 2026 (36.7%) rising to EUR 2,204,000 in 2027 and EUR 1,900,000 in 2028, at an average ticket rising from EUR 4,592 towards approximately EUR 9,500–10,000, with the business book at EUR 604,800 outstanding at end-2026 — retaining manual due diligence on every exposure. The operational change that carries this volume is the post-financing hiring plan: personal client managers, so that the relationship model scales with the number of borrowers, and in-house IT staff to deliver the platform programme; the analyst-bound underwriting process is the current throughput ceiling, and headcount is added ahead of the volume it serves. Marketing and acquisition spend is held to a small share of issuance throughout, consistent with a channel mix weighted toward referral and relationship channels that carry low cost and a degree of borrower pre-selection.

Investment allocation — use of loan proceeds

The proposed facility of EUR 2,450,000 is allocated in its entirety to portfolio formation — the funding of new loan originations across the two lending lines — and is not used for operating expenses, technology development, equipment or any non-lending purpose. The split weights the individual line, consistent with the forecast issuance mix over the deployment window, with flexibility to adjust within the envelope as demand develops. The programme's five- and seven-month tranche structure broadly aligns with the tenor of the funded book — individual cohorts running approximately 2–4 months and business cohorts approximately 4–5 months — so that the loans funded by each tranche substantially complete their cycle within the tranche's life; the constraint removed is a rolling working-capital constraint, as funded loans mature and repay and the same capital recycles into new originations within the limits of the programme.

Acquisition channels

The acquisition strategy is built on a deliberate avoidance of large-scale paid marketing as a primary growth lever, replaced by a portfolio of low-cost, relationship-led channels — reflecting two structural choices: customer-acquisition cost is a sensitive variable for a lender operating on a finite spread, so the company prioritises channels whose cost is incurred only on a completed loan or which carry no external cost at all; and a clientele of entrepreneurs, senior managers and professionals is reached through reputation, referral and personal networks rather than through mass-market advertising funnels, bringing borrowers with a degree of pre-selection that paid channels do not. Origination runs through the company's web platform and disbursement and collection through M-Pesa, so the channel mix operates without a branch network; the company deliberately runs no USSD channel, consistent with a considered, document-supported application at its ticket sizes.

Capital structure and leverage profile

The growth plan does not provide for a further increase in paid-in capital, and — a deliberate feature of the plan — no follow-on external financing is planned after the programme: the company funds its launch from the owners' equity contribution of EUR 122,300, funds the 2026–2027 portfolio build from the external programme of EUR 2,450,000, and thereafter operates on its own capital. The financial model demonstrates that the company functions adequately on that basis — profitable in 2028 with no funding cost at all — at the cost of lower issuance volumes than continued leverage would permit (EUR 5,620,000 in unlevered 2028 against EUR 7,547,000 in leveraged 2027); the forecast does not depend on any new facility, refinancing or capital injection. The leverage the programme produces is contained and temporary — the company is unlevered before the programme is drawn and after it is repaid, and within the active period the debt-to-equity ratio begins at approximately 3.0× when the first tranches are drawn in September 2026, rises to a peak of approximately 8.8× in January 2027 as the tranches accumulate faster than retained earnings, stands at 8.8× at end-2026 (external debt of EUR 1,400,000 over equity of approximately EUR 159,904), and then declines through the repayment period to approximately 2.7× by May 2027 and to nil from October 2027 once the programme is fully repaid.

This is a moderate leverage profile for a non-bank lender, and its defining feature is that the peak is transient and self-extinguishing: unlike a continuously refinanced debt stack, which holds leverage elevated for as long as the facility is rolled, the company's leverage rises only to fund the portfolio build and is then repaid in full from operating cash flow, leaving the company debt-free from October 2027. The decision to raise neither further equity nor further debt preserves the existing ownership and reflects the model's demonstration that the programme is serviced and repaid from operating cash flow rather than requiring a capital buffer or a successor facility to support it.

Conclusion

The growth plan of TAZU CREDIT LIMITED scales an operating model already proven on a small scale — two lending lines on one platform, a premium-segment, personally underwritten lender position, and eight months of profitable operating data with no recorded defaults — at a transaction volume that takes total issuance from EUR 2,794,081 in 2026 to EUR 7,547,000 in 2027 and EUR 5,620,000 in 2028, with the outstanding portfolio peaking at EUR 1.49 million at end-2026 before contracting to a level supported by the company's own capital as the external programme is repaid. The plan does not depend on new geographies, new products or institutional restructuring; it depends on the orderly scaling of documented unit economics through low-cost, relationship-led distribution, supported by a platform programme aimed at borrower convenience and repayment discipline, against an under-penetrated Kenyan credit market with favourable structural drivers — a thinly served premium niche, a large MSME finance gap, monetary easing and a licensing regime that favours compliant operators. A single financing instrument carries the plan: the EUR 2,450,000 programme, allocated 70.0% to the individual line and 30.0% to the business line, funds the portfolio build and is repaid in full from operating cash flow by October 2027, with no equity injection and no follow-on financing required and a transient peak leverage of approximately 8.8× that fully unwinds. The principal risks are execution and credit risks rather than structural risks — holding default control as the client funnel widens severalfold, scaling the personal-underwriting and personal-manager model through the planned hiring, and meeting the projected origination and collection schedule through the funded window — partially mitigated by the granular monthly model, the short tenor of the individual book that limits at-risk balances, the personal review of every exposure, and the platform functions designed to support repayment discipline at scale.

Description of the Loan

To fund the formation of the company's loan portfolio across the individual and business lines documented earlier in this Executive Summary, TAZU CREDIT LIMITED intends to obtain a EUR 2,450,000 term-loan facility structured as a series of fixed bullet tranches at two fixed annual interest rates — EUR 1,400,000 at 22.9% per annum and EUR 1,050,000 at 16.8% per annum, a weighted-average cost of approximately 20.3%. The facility is drawn on a fixed schedule of fourteen tranches over seven consecutive periods — two tranches in each period, one in each of the two pricing bands — with each 22.9% tranche carrying an independent seven-month bullet maturity, each 16.9% tranche an independent five-month bullet maturity, and both serviced by monthly interest-only payments. Interest accrues only on amounts actually drawn, so the monthly interest obligation grows in line with cumulative drawdowns rather than reaching its maximum at facility inception, which protects both lender and borrower from carry cost on capital not yet deployed into the loan portfolio. The facility is not used for operating expenses, technology development, equipment or any non-lending purpose — 100% of drawn capital is deployed to portfolio formation across the two lines, split 70% to the individual line and 30% to the business line — and, unlike a continuously refinanced facility, its principal is repaid from the company's own cash generation rather than rolled at maturity.

Indicative facility terms

Drawdown structure

The facility is drawn on a fixed schedule of fourteen tranches across seven consecutive periods, two tranches in each period — one of EUR 200,000 at 22.9% per annum over five months and one of EUR 150,000 at 16.9% per annum over seven months. The schedule is set out below.