Sacco borrowing shifts toward medical and education needs
Business
By
Graham Kajilwa
| Jul 04, 2026
Medical expenses became the most pressing need for members of savings cooperatives in the year that ended on March 2026, as sectoral credit demand grew by 31.03 per cent in the period.
Of the eight economic sectors listed in the latest data set from the Sacco Societies Regulatory Authority (Sasra), human health recorded the highest year-on-year (YoY) growth between March 2025 and March 2026.
Yet even with this being the fastest growth, land and housing still claimed the largest share of disbursements in the first quarter of the year.
The second most pressing need was education, with a YoY change of 27.12 percent and land and housing coming third with a growth of 18.01 per cent.
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Demand for credit in the finance, investment and insurance sector grew by 17.97 per cent, manufacturing and servicing industries by 16.95 percent, trade by 16.11 per cent, agriculture by 6.63 per cent and consumption and social services by 0.56 per cent.
While the human health had the most growth in credit demand in the reviewed period, land and housing still took the bulk of disbursement in the quarter that ended on March 2026.
In this period, Sh33.74 billion was disbursed for land and housing, Sh24.81 billion for education, Sh18.70 billion for agriculture, Sh15.74 billion for trade, Sh8.82 billion for consumption and social services, Sh6.63 billion for finance, investments and insurance, Sh4.50 billion for manufacturing and servicing industries while human health received Sh2.79 billion.
Even though Sh2.79 billion was disbursed for health sector, a slightly higher amount (Sh2.13 billion) than what was disbursed for the quarter that ended on March 2025, it was still the least in sectoral allocations in the quarter.
Gross loans in the year that ended on March 2026 grew by 10.98 per cent, a nominal increase of Sh94.05 billion.
Alternatively, total assets of savings cooperatives grew by 12.3 per cent in the year ended March 2026 to hit Sh1.2 trillion
The quarterly statistics by the Sacco Societies Regulatory Authority (Sasra), shows growth in the period among deposit taking saccos (DT) was double that of non-withdrawable deposit taking entities (NWDT).
Assets growth also shot up to Sh1.2 trillion up from Sh1.1 trillion posted in March 2025. DT saccos’ assets grew by 13.1 per cent in the period while NWDT improved by 6.7 per cent. Total assets of DT saccos now stand at Sh1.1 trillion while NWDT has reached Sh139.9 billion.
While total assets improved by 12.3 per cent, gross loans grew by 11 percent, deposits by 11.2 per cent, total income by 18.4 per cent and reserves by 15 per cent.
Total loans in the period grew to Sh950.9 billion, deposits to Sh870.0 billion, income to Sh46.3 billion and reserves to Sh247.5 billion.
While total income among both sacco tiers grew by 18.38 per cent to Sh46.25 billion, NWDT recorded a negative deviation. Income for DT saccos grew 21.53 per cent to Sh42.14 billion while that of NWDT institutions dropped from Sh4.39 billion as at March 2025 to Sh4.11 billion in the
latest quarter.
The Sh4.11 billion, when compared to December 2025 when the income stood at Sh16.41 billion, is a further deviation of 74.95 per cent.