Terms of use

1. Agreeing to these terms

By creating an account or using the Mali Yangu app or website, you agree to these terms and to our privacy policy. If you do not agree, please do not use Mali Yangu. You must be at least 18 years old. Financier companies that use the Mali Yangu portal also agree to the plan and portal terms that apply to them.

2. What Mali Yangu is, and is not

Mali Yangu is a marketplace. We help you get verified, compare independent financiers that lend where you live, and send your application to the one you choose. Mali Yangu is not a lender, a bank or a financial adviser. We do not lend you money, we do not decide whether you are approved, and we are not a party to the agreement you make with a financier. Nothing in the app is financial, legal or tax advice.

Financiers are independent companies. Each one sets its own prices, deposit, fees and repayment terms, decides on every application, and may turn an application down. A good result from our assessment does not promise that any financier will approve you.

3. Assets, not cash

Mali Yangu is for financing the purchase of an asset, such as a motorcycle, tricycle, solar kit, phone or business equipment. Every offer in the app is for a specific asset with its price. You choose an asset and one of a financier's asset products, and you do not type in an amount of money to borrow. Nobody receives cash through Mali Yangu.

4. Your account

• Give true and complete information, and keep it up to date. Use your own phone number, your own National ID and your own photos.
• One person, one account. A National ID number can be used for one account only.
• Keep your password, sign-in codes and phone safe. You are responsible for what happens on your account, so tell us right away at contact@maliyanguapp.com if you think someone else has it.
• You can change your password in the app, or reset a forgotten one with a code sent to the email on your account. Add an email in Profile so that you can.
• We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, is used to commit fraud, or puts others at risk.

5. Your personal details

You fill in your sex, date of birth, where you live, and your work and income once. You can correct a mistake for a short time after you finish (an hour), and then these details are locked, so they cannot be changed after you apply to financiers. To change them later, contact us and we may open them again. Financiers rely on these details, so it is a breach of these terms to give false ones.

When you apply to a financier, you agree that we send it your application and the details it needs to decide: your name, phone number, identity details and photos, age, sex, district and town, work and income, credit and assessment results. See the privacy policy for the full list.

6. Credit checks and the assessment

We run a credit check with a licensed credit reference bureau only after you agree to it in the app. The assessment asks short questions about how you plan and manage money and gives a Green, Amber or Red result for each financier you are assessed for. If your result is Red, you may have to wait before you can be assessed again. Results are our own measure, based on what you tell us and on the credit check. They are not a promise, and a financier may decide differently.

7. Fees and payments

Browsing and comparing is free. The assessment has a fee, which the app shows you before you pay. It covers identity checks, a credit check and the assessment for the financier you choose, and it is not refundable once the assessment is done, whatever a financier later decides. Fees are paid by mobile money or card through payment providers, and we email you a receipt when we have your email. The fee is for our service. It is not a deposit, a loan fee or part of the price of an asset, and it is not paid to a financier.

8. Applying, and your agreement with a financier

• You can have one open application with a financier at a time. The financier confirms the final offer after it reviews your application.
• If a financier approves you and you accept, your agreement is with that financier. Its terms decide the price, deposit, fees, how and when you pay, what happens if you pay late, and what the financier can do. Read them before you sign. Mali Yangu is not responsible for a financier's terms or conduct.
• You must repay what you owe the financier on time. Financiers tell us how a loan is going (on time, late, in default or repaid). We may show other financiers, in counts only, how many loans you have, and whether any are late or in default.
• To protect financiers and customers from over-borrowing, we may limit how many loans you can have running, pause new applications on your account, or ask you to settle a loan first. Do not apply to many financiers with no intention of repaying.
• Mali Yangu does not collect your loan repayments. Pay a financier only in the way it tells you, and keep your receipts.

9. Sponsored offers

Some financiers pay to show offers in the app. These are clearly marked Sponsored. A sponsored offer is not a recommendation by Mali Yangu and does not make approval more likely.

10. What you must not do

• Use a false identity, someone else's ID, phone or photos, or false information about your work or income.
• Open more than one account, or help someone else to.
• Try to get round our checks, limits or the locking of your details, or to reach information that is not yours.
• Copy, scrape, reverse engineer or disrupt the app, website or portal, or use them to send spam or harm anyone.
• Harass or mislead financiers, other customers or our staff.

We may report fraud and other crimes to the authorities.

11. Notifications

We send notifications about your applications, payments, security and account, and you cannot turn those off while you have an account. Reminders and offers are optional, and you can turn them off in Profile.

12. Our service and our rights

We work to keep Mali Yangu running, but we cannot promise it will always be available or error free. Parts of it depend on others, such as mobile networks, mobile money, card, email and notification services, and credit bureaus. We may change, pause or end features, and we may change prices and plans for financiers. The Mali Yangu app, website, name, logo and content belong to us or our licensors. You may use the app for your own personal use only.

13. Limits on our responsibility

To the extent the law allows, Mali Yangu is not responsible for a financier's decisions, prices, terms, delays or conduct, for a loss that comes from a financier not approving, paying out or collecting as expected, or for indirect or consequential loss. Where we are responsible to you, our total liability for any one claim is limited to the fees you paid us in the 12 months before it. Nothing in these terms limits a liability that cannot be limited by law, such as for fraud or for death or personal injury caused by negligence.

14. Ending your use

You can stop using Mali Yangu at any time and delete your account in the app (Profile, then Delete my account). See how to delete your account. We cannot delete an account while a loan is still being repaid, or approved and waiting to be paid out. Ending your account does not cancel what you owe a financier, or fees you have already paid.

15. Changes to these terms

If we change these terms in a way that matters, we will tell you in the app or by message before the change takes effect. If you keep using Mali Yangu after that, you accept the new terms. The date at the top shows when they were last updated.

16. Law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of Uganda, and the courts of Uganda can hear any dispute about them. Please write to us first at contact@maliyanguapp.com and give us a chance to put things right.

17. Contact us

Questions about these terms: contact@maliyanguapp.com.