[caption id="attachment_5020" align="aligncenter" width="105" caption="A sign on a shop in Nairobi (Photo: Mocality)"][/caption]

When you walk on the ever busy and crowded Tom Mboya street in Nairobi, you will see hundreds of pink signs with "INSTANT CASH ON ITEMS". The rate at which entities sprung clearly shows there is business in it.

The businesses, apparently are emergency saviors for asset owners who are hard up and need quick cash. They hold on all manner of valuables to give you cash, from mobile phones to motor vehicles, to land and real estate property.

I checked into one sometime back wanting a quick, genuine Shs 2000. I was hard up. The guy looked at my phone and decided, it could not fetch that much, but agreed to give me the loan, Shs 500 less. He quickly brought a file from the back room and from the amount of paperwork in the file, he clearly was in business. So we signed up, removed my SIM card from the phone and went backstage again.

My curiosity got me looking around. There were valuables; Radios, TVs, Laptops, phones all on display marked 'FOR SALE'. A 42 inch plasma TV caught my eyes and I quickly looked through the file. The owner took home Shs 32,000 and had now defaulted. It was on sale, for Shs 70,000, two weeks since the date it was brought in.

The main reason, I thought was the interest rates on these one week loans. They charge a weekly interest of 30% simple interest on all items. It is not negotiable. I paid back Shs 1,950 after seven days, and took back my phone in the same condition I left it. The plasma guy, in those two weeks, was supposed to pay back Shs 41,600 at the end of the first week, or Shs 51, 200 in the second grace week. Thereafter, he could not have his TV back and it went up on sell.

That is practically saying he accumulated a debt of Shs 19, 200 in two weeks which forced him to dispose of a Shs 120,000 asset for Shs 32,000. Before you take this loan, weigh some other affordable options like banks and micro finance institutions.