Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Kenya is pleased to announce that Anzetse Were has joined the team as Economist, effective September 2019.

Social media is changing customer service by shifting the ways in which consumers seek resolution of problems and the communications channels that firms make available to consumers.

In April 2019, the 2019 FinAccess Household Survey revealed that Kenya had made extraordinary strides in financial inclusion. While FinAccess 2019 shows that financial inclusion has peaked at 83% among Kenyans, its findings also evoke poignant questions.

The use of an alert system that flagged Twitter conversations on consumer protection topics, when they rose above certain thresholds, shows promise as a new consumer protection market monitoring tool that we could use in Kenya to address the substantial gaps in consumer protection monitoring and enforcement.

Manufacturers of cars or microwave machines are duty bound to ensure that their products are safe for use. Why can’t financial regulation introduce a similar obligation to ensure financial products and services are not negligently developed and sold, causing harm to consumers?

As I reflect on my first month leading FSD Kenya, I am struck by both the challenges we face as well as the opportunities we can seize to truly create value through inclusive finance in Kenya.

Education presents an opportunity for poor households to break out of the poverty cycle in future. What are some of the interventions and finance solutions that have made a difference in education finance?

Education is the top priority for Kenyans according to FinAccess Household Survey 2019. Poor households particularly attach high value to educating their children.

FSD Kenya set out to explore ways of using finance to build livelihoods of poor households in Kitui. The survey identified indigenous poultry and pulses as the agriculture value chains with the greatest opportunity for low-income households.

FinAccess 2019 was launched last week by the Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya.  The results from this national household survey provide a comprehensive and authoritative picture of the retail financial services sector in Kenya.

If we want truly dynamic and competitive pricing, we just need to empower consumers’ data to be the oil that lubricates a new type of marketplace.

When clear rules that govern the financial sector are enforced well, it ensures that both providers and consumers emerge from the market place as winners

Financial inclusion has attracted enormous interest because of its promise to provide an instrument for economic and social empowerment. Initial thinking was that simply expanding the reach of the financial sector would produce financial tools to support greater economic and social inclusion. But the results thus far have been disappointing.

Throughout this blog series I have examined FSD Kenya’s Building Livelihoods programme from an identity perspective. I have shown how the Hunger Safety Net Programme (HSNP) creates valued identities in the community and how there are different pathways to savings group identification and value.

The role of community-based facilitators (CBFs) is to encourage participation in savings groups, ensure groups function effectively, and provide training on basic financial and business skills, as well as prepare participants for formal loans.

Over the past two years I have travelled to Marsabit County in Northern Kenya four times to talk to the same 50 people about their lives and experiences as participants of FSD Kenya’s Building Livelihoods programme. The programme aims to help participants develop sustainable livelihoods through business.

Where there is already a strong value associated with savings groups, people are likely to more rapidly join, participate more fully, and exemplify what it means to be a member of the group.

FSD Kenya’s Building Livelihoods programme is a market-based adaptation of the Graduation approach popularised by BRAC in Bangladesh. Over a period of two years, participants shared stories about their lives and early experiences with the programme giving insight into who they are and how they think and change throughout the programme.

Data protection is one of the most important issues currently facing the Kenyan economy. On July 17th FSD Kenya submitted public comments to the Data Protection Bill, 2018 presented by the Senate ICT Committee.

There is a range of new data sharing models emerging that could have a significant impact on financial innovation in emerging markets.

The combination of a regulatory sandbox and a one-stop-shop regulatory helpline is what the Kenyan fintech market needs to continue innovating.

FSD Kenya carries out research excursions across the country to obtain perspectives of ordinary Kenyans regarding finance, financial services and how the financial system has impacted their livelihoods.

On 30th June 2017, M-Akiba, a Kenyan government bond sold through the mobile phone, was launched.

After many years, the involvement of many partners and many iterations, M-Akiba, a Kenyan government bond sold through the mobile phone, was launched in 2017.

The rise of a new dawn in Kenya’s payments system

Eleven years after mobile money started in Kenya, a new dawn is rising – that of open and interoperable systems. Just as you can call people on any network in Kenya seamlessly, you can now send money across mobile money networks seamlessly.

Why FSAs are the preferred financial service providers in Kitui.

The popularity of graduation programmes as the means to ending extreme poverty is growing globally.

“We have been working towards this moment for a long time. With the bank loans just a few weeks away we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.” 

Digital credit has become a leading source of credit in Kenya. Who is using digital credit and what impact is it having on low-income customers?

Why informal financial groups fundamentally embody key features of how Kenyans want their money to work to help them live well

The financial services for the poor, or more specifically financial inclusion, industry has realised in the recent past that more and better information about its target client-base is essential to delivering services effectively.

For the first time in over a decade, Sub-Saharan Africa is a top priority for international funders investing in financial inclusion, with 30 percent of all active projects focused on the region.