I, like all, Kenyans, love a bargain. I look at prices everywhere I go, not because I plan to buy anything, but because I have to know where the cheapest things can be found. Bargain hunting isn’t just about consumer items. I look for the best price in services as well, and that includes my personal insurance and my bank.

Running a personal finance website, I get a lot of emails, calls, and texts asking me which is the best savings account, the cheapest current account, or the best pension fund. I can only answer queries based on what I know, so I do a lot of research to get my facts right, and I find myself getting more and more frustrated by how hard it is to get the information I need.

I remember once walking into one of the local banks to find out about their loans. I explained that I work with a local financial site, and I was immediately told that they don’t give prices for comparison purposes. That sounded ridiculous because those same prices were on display in the banking hall, but the pretty lady I was talking to clammed up and wouldn’t tell me anything. I have even had to walk into a bank with the questions officially written down claiming  to be a univeristy student looking for information on behalf of my father.

It amazes me how easy it is to find information in countries like the US and the UK. There are literally millions of sites that have detailed articles on types of loans, interest rates, and pretty much anything you need to know about finances. Sites like lovemoney.com even have a comparison page on banking fees at different financial institutions.

Mocality is a local start-up that built up the largest online directory in Kenya through crowd-sourcing. What if we could use the same idea to build up a database of financial information? How could it be done? How could we find out what financial services are available, including their cost, location, and fine print? Who knows, Google might come a-scraping :-)

As Kenya’s primary online resource on money matters, we’d love to hear from you on how we can pull this off. Place your suggestions in the comments section, or send an email to jmacharia (at) moneyacademy(dot) co (dot)ke and we'll pull them together.