| dc.description.abstract | In recent years, governmental and nongovernmental organizations in many low-income countries have introduced group credit programs targeted to the poor. These programs usually operate in economies that are hindered by inflation, poor infrastructure and absence of legal regulations. Most of them offer short term range loans, mandatory and voluntary savings, training services. Women entrepreneurship has become more of a way of life and 'engine' for economic transformation among rural and urban poor. Access to micro credit proves the economic status of women and makes them more empowered in decision making. Group lending scheme is essential
in promoting small businesses especially amongst women. The statement of the problem was to examine the influence group credit lending on women owned SMEs in reduction of poverty and assistance of developing countries in the areas of wealth creation and improvement of living standards .. The purpose of the study was to establish the influence of group credit schemes on performance of small and medium enterprises owned by women. The objectives of the study was to determine the level at which high interest group credit influence performance of SMEs owned by women in Kisumu East District; training influence performance of SMEs owned by women in Kisumu East district; group credit repayment affect performance of SMEs owned by women in Kisumu East district and saving scheme influence performance of SMEs owned by women in Kisumu East district.
The research design used is descriptive survey which sought to ascertain respondent's perspectives or experiences on a specified subject. The study targeted 2000 women who were in groups and owned SMEs in Kisumu East district .The sample size consisted of 322 SMEs randomly sample from the population operating businesses in Kisumu East district. The study employed both descriptive and inferential data analyses technique which enabled the study to establish essential facts, answer research questions, and enabled relevant conclusions to be drawn and recommendations concerning the study to be made. The study found that there were four factors that influenced performance of the SMEs in Kisumu east district. These factors were reduced credit interest rates. 92.6% of those who access credit favors cheap credit, increased level of training in financial management (96.3 %of those trained improve in performance of the business), reduced number of times that the respondents repaid their loans and belonging to saving schemes by the members of the SMEs .Over 81% of those who saved performance in their business improved.
These factors improved the profitability of the SMEs and increased the chances of the SMEs increasing the number customers and staff, as well as having expanded sizes of business. The study recommends that there need to be formulation and adoption of policy and practice that will ensure that the SMEs are not charged high interest rates or are charged interest rates that are reducing so as to ensure that the do not pay very high interest which may affect their performance. The study recommends that lending institutions need to set up policies that will ensure that every person who is given credit is also trained on important business skills such as training in financial management, business planning and record keeping.
The study recommends that the lending institutions should place a standard lending period in which the businesses should not pay in less than a month, more so during the early periods of taking the loan. The study suggests in future, researchers should do the same study with focus on the SMEs who have been given credit by the commercial banks and other institutions such as the government for purpose of comparison with the findings of this study. The study suggests that in future researchers should investigate the extent to which credit interest rates, increased level of training in financial management, reduced number of times that the respondents repaid their loans and belonging to saving schemes by the members of the SMEs influence performance using a regression analysis. | en_US |
