Effect Of Interest Rates On Financial Performance Of Deposit Taking Micro Financial Institutions In Kenya

ABSTRACT

Microfinance institutions have grown faster since their origin, 1976 in Bangladesh; with the first being the Grameen bank. Countries like South Africa have also recorded consistent growth of microfinance institutions. In Kenya, deposit taking microfinance institutions have not been much effective because they possess internal issues such as interest rates that hinder their effectiveness. Studies show commercial banks account for 22.6% of the population while 17.9% is served by the microfinance institutions and 26.8% rely on the informal financial services and 32.7% of the population never relied on financial institutions for their savings and investment undertakings. Past studies have posted inconsistent and mixed results on interest rates and financial performance of deposit takings microfinance institutions and fluctuation of interest rates from time to time as other reviewed literature focused on the general performance of MFIs and lending institution. It is also evident that most of the studies focused generally on effect of interest rates on lending institutions which include all financial institutions. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of interest rates on financial performance of deposit takings microfinance institutions in Kenya. Specifically the study sought to; determine the effect of customer loans interest rates on financial performance of deposit taking microfinance institutions in Kenya, assess the effect of deposit interest rates on financial performance of deposit taking microfinance institutions in Kenya and establish the relationship between interest rates and financial performance of deposit taking microfinance institutions in Kenya. The study was anchored on the micro credit, liquidity preference and classical theories and adopted correlational research design on 9 deposit taking microfinance institutions in Kenya which was done through census. The study used secondary panel data from 2013 - 2017 financial audited reports and findings were presented in tables. Findings of the study revealed that the model had a significance level of 0.000 which shows that the data is ideal for making conclusions on the population‟s parameter as the value of significance (p-value) < 5%. The study showed a significant negative effect of lending interest rates, deposit interest rates on the financial performance of the deposit takings microfinance institutions (R2=.724, p=.000). (coeff. =.-181, p=.000) a significantly negative effect of deposit rates on financial performance; a `positive significance on effect of lending rates on financial performance (coeff. =.019, p= .032). The study further revealed that there was a strong positive relationship between the study variables (R 0.283, p = 0.144) lending rates; (R=- 0.817; p = 0.000) deposit rates.The study concludes that holding lending interest rates to a constant zero, a unit increase in lending interest rates would lead to an increase in performance of the industry, unit increase. Holding deposit interest rates to a constant zero, a unit increase in deposit interest rates would lead to a decrease in performance. All the variables lending interest rate and deposit interest rates and in relation to performance was all positive. The study recommend lower lending and deposit interest rates to encourage borrowing/deposit and economic growth.The finding of the study is deemed useful to policy makers on improving the microfinance industry and other researchers with related academia interest.