Abstract:
Product innovations are crucial to sustain organizations’ financial performance and raise their competitive strengths. SACCOS are the main drivers of economic and social development in rural areas of developing countries. In Kenya 81% of the population rely on the SACCOs to access financial services. However the use of SACCOs by Kenyans as a financial service provider has been declining. The SACCOs are faced with challenges of survival due to decline of members. The decline is attributed to the competition from banks which have embraced financial innovations. The study therefore investigated the effect of product innovations on financial performance of SACCOs in Kenya. The study adopted cross sectional descriptive survey research design. The target population was 60 SACCOs registered by SASRA to operate in Kirinyaga County. Stratified simple random sampling technique was used to obtain the sample size of fifty two SACCOs for the study. Primary data was collected using self-administered questionnaires while secondary data was obtained from audited financial statements. Primary and secondary data was analyzed using SPSS. The findings of the study revealed that product innovations were positively correlated to financial performance. The study will be of great importance to Policy maker in developing SACCO’s financial innovations regulatory framework. SACCO Managers will be able to adopt the product innovations that will improve financial performance of the SACCOs and their competitiveness. The study will further enlighten researchers with relevant information regarding product innovations. The study recommends that SACCOs should embrace product innovations in order to improve their financial performance. SACCOs should therefore introduce new deposit accounts in order to increase the amount of deposits. The SACCOs should also introduce credit cards and debit cards in order to increase their revenue. Similarly, the SACCOs should introduce electronic fund transfer since they have a positive effect of increasing commission fee based income
