Demonstrating highly responsible lending in Africa, in an era of rising economic pressure
07 July 2025 – JUMO, an AI-driven financial technology company serving Africa, has achieved a remarkable 92.2% score in its customer protection assessment by leading social and environmental impact management organisation Cerise+ SPTF.
JUMO partnered with and was assessed by Cerise+SPTF, a joint initiative of two leading global organizations dedicated to social and environmental performance management and customer protection in digital financial services. JUMO helped set the standards for responsible frameworks for ESG rating and verification, as well as customer protection principles in microfinance.
JUMO is the first company to have been assessed against these new standards and to achieve an unprecedented result of 92.2%. As participants in the newly launched Digital Financial Services (DFS) Standards, developed in collaboration with Cerise+SPTF, this independently assessed score places JUMO among the highest-performing digital financial services providers.
As economic pressures intensify globally, and access to credit grows to meet the needs of emerging market customers, responsible lending has become increasingly urgent and critical to safeguarding the long-term sustainability of digital financial ecosystems and consumers. JUMO’s high customer protection score reflects a deep, business-wide commitment to building next generation financial systems that prioritise customer wellbeing and empowerment.
Underpinned by advanced AI and machine learning, JUMO’s information management systems and infrastructure for banks deliver credit scoring capabilities with close on 98% accuracy, robust risk management at a cost of < 4%, and fit-for-purpose financial products for both business and consumer end users. These scores have been honed over more than a decade of training alternative data sets to enable emerging market customers to access tailored financial solutions on demand.
Financial services powered by JUMO are anchored in five Customer Operating Principles developed by the company:
1. Access and inclusion – enabling financial access for people excluded from formal economic systems.
2. Sustainable digital ecosystems – building resilient infrastructure to democratise financial services.
3. Choice and empowerment – offering customers options and the ability to make informed financial decisions.
4. Financial value – ensuring the delivery of financial products with measurable value and convenience.
5. Responsible stewardship of customer data – upholding the highest data rights and privacy standards and ensuring data use enhances customer benefit for a fair and transparent exchange.
These principles are embedded throughout JUMO’s operations, from product design to customer experience to align employees and partners in their combined mission to build financial services with sustainable social impact.
JUMO Founder and CEO Andrew Watkins-Ball said:
‘Our score of 92.2% is a clear indicator of the principles and values we’ve embedded into our systems over more than 10 years to protect and empower our partners and customers. Responsible lending is a core component of JUMO’s business and a key plank of how we deliver good value, innovative and useful products to our customers.
‘We’re grateful to have our approach recognised as a benchmark, and we’ll keep innovating and setting industry standards.’’
JUMO played a central role in shaping DFS Standards from the outset. The company participated in the first pilot assessment in 2022 and contributed essential feedback to help ensure the standards address the realities of digital and remote financial environments. After the framework was finalised, JUMO volunteered to be among the first fintechs assessed under the new model. An evaluation led by an independent consultant in collaboration with Cerise+SPTF led to the 92.2% score.
Amelia Greenberg spokesperson for Cerise+SPTF said:
‘JUMO has been a partner with Cerise+SPTF on DFS Standards development since the beginning, joining our peer learning discussions and piloting the earliest version.
‘JUMO not only implements strong customer protection practices but also contributes actively to building tools that benefit the broader inclusive finance sector.
‘The DFS Standards are particularly important, as implementing them both mitigates risks to customers and strengthens the sustainability of financial service providers.’
ENDS
For media enquiries, contact: comms@jumo.world
ABOUT JUMO
JUMO has built AI-led financial technology that powers banks to deliver a new generation of digital credit and savings products to millions of entrepreneurs in Africa. We work with partners, such as banks, e-money operators and payments providers, to facilitate high-tech information and money management systems.
Since founding in 2015, JUMO has disbursed over $7.9 billion dollars to more than 31 million people in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda, Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa and Cameroon. Our administration of over 242 million individual loans has proven that microcredit in Africa is imperative, impactful and sustainable.
With unmatched speed to market and low infrastructure costs, JUMO aims to bring banking to everyone, everywhere, anytime.
www.jumo.world
ABOUT CERISE+SPTF
Cerise+SPTF is a joint initiative led by two organizations who work globally to promote responsible and inclusive finance.
The Social Performance Task Force (SPTF) is a U.S. membership organization established in 2005. SPTF works collaboratively with stakeholders around the world to identify management standards for financial service providers to offer safer, more beneficial financial services, raise awareness of these standards, and support their implementation.
Cerise (Comité d’échange, de réflexion et d’information sur les systèmes d’épargne-crédits), is a French nonprofit created in 1998. Cerise works with professionals around the world, using iterative methods, to co-develop and maintain assessment tools and technical resources that enable impact organizations to evaluate and improve their practices.
As the developers and champions of interdependent and complementary tools and products, Cerise and SPTF have worked closely together since the mid-2000s. In 2021, they merged their common activities under the name Cerise+SPTF.
