September 23rd, 2025

For consumers and small businesses, financial data is a key enabler of access to new opportunities such as business investment or financing of key household needs like housing, education, and consumption. But too often this data remains siloed across different financial service providers (FSPs), with limited ability for consumers and businesses to share this data with other competing FSPs.

Open finance is a new model for financial ecosystems which seeks to break down these data siloes across financial institutions. At the center of this is consumer control over their data – in open finance consumers can direct participating financial service providers to make their financial information available to other financial service providers, and unlike most current models this is not dependent on the data holder being willing to do so.

Kenya has some of the highest potential for open finance in Africa, with 84.8% of adults having access to formal financial accounts (FinAccess 2024), interoperable and fast digital payments, and a diverse digital finance sector of banks, mobile money operators and fintechs. Kenya’s digital financial sector consistently ranks in the top three African markets for fintech startups and has successfully developed shared solutions such as open APIs and remote identify confirmation through mobile phone subscriptions that could provide key infrastructure for open finance. Recent policy efforts such as Digital Credit Providers Regulations and the planned Fast Payments System show an interest in policy innovations to increase quality of digital finance and improve policy oversight.

Open finance could be the next stage in market development for Kenya’s financial sector, increasing competition and consumer choice in key sectors such as mobile money and digital credit, which currently have high levels of market concentration. This report summarizes initial industry consultations on the potential, challenges, and requirements to implement open finance in Kenya.

The primary sources of data collection were individual interviews, a survey distributed to stakeholders in the financial sector, an industry webinar “Navigating open finance in Kenya,” and an Open Finance Industry Workshop held on March 19, 2025. A report validation session was also convened on July 10, 2025. The session brought together stakeholders to review the draft findings and provide additional input prior to finalisation.

Click here for the full Unlocking open finance in Kenya: Opportunities for Kenya’s financial sector report.

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