Abstract
The study explores the effect of financial engineering on
financial performance of deposit taking Savings and Credit Co-operative
Societies (SACCOs) in Kenya. Population constituted of 163 SACCOs and a sample
of 45 was considered. The results depicted that SACCOs have adopted financial
engineering practices in three forms: product engineering, process engineering
and financial solutions engineering. In terms of their effect on performance,
only process engineering was found to have a positive and significant
relationship with financial performance. Product engineering and financial solutions
engineering were found to have a positive but insignificant relationship was
obtained. The study recommends that SACCOS should adopt financial engineering
practices so as to improve their performance. More focus should be on process
engineering. As such, SACCOs should automate their operations, adopt paperless
services, use mobile banking services platform, use electronic funds transfer
and install ATMs so as to improve their performance. In terms of control
variables, the amount of loans were found to positively and significantly
influence financial performance. As such, SACCOs should strive to derive
products that can increase their level of loans.
Keywords: Financial engineering, Financial performance, SACCOs,
Kenya.