On the morning of November 3rd, 2020, I was honoured to be part of the launch of the Year of Climate Action in Kenya (#YoCaKenya).

In 2019, FSD Kenya and Turaco – a Kenyan microinsurtech startup providing simple, low-cost health and life insurance products to emerging market consumers – collaborated on a three-month pilot project in with a leading digital lender in Kenya. The study found that 80% of respondents were most interested in an in-patient cover to cushion the cost of hospital admissions, saying getting such insurance for free is incentive enough to repay their loans on time. Almost 50% of the treatment group opted in to having insurance payments added to their future loans, citing the idea of low-cost insurance from a financial service provider they know and trust as a key incentive.

The year 2020 will undoubtedly go down in history as the point in time when COVID-19 paralysed the world.

On Thursday 3rd September 2020, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), the Kenya Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) and the Financial Sector Deepening Trust (FSD Kenya) hosted a “FinAccess Datafest” webinar, live-streamed to a global audience on YouTube.

As the world reels from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, a key lesson it has taught us is the universality of our vulnerability.

A little over a month ago, we confirmed an exciting hypothesis  that it is actually possible to predict the propensity of success for Kenyan “hustlers” based on data mining and qualitative research

A big question amidst the current COVID-19 has been, how are community-based finance models fairing?

The COVID-19 pandemic is testing the resilience of governments, health systems, large companies, small businesses and families worldwide.

Shujaaz Inc. is a Kenyan communications research and production company. Formerly called Well Told Story, the company is the producer of “Shujaaz,” an award-winning media platform that provides open spaces – including online platforms – for youth to discuss personal and societal issues often considered sensitive or taboo within their communities.

This is the second blog in a three-part series on youth employment and skill-based work.

We were huddled in a routine team discussion at FSD Kenya when we received news of the first confirmed Covid-19 case in Kenya.  Like many others, we wondered what this might mean for our work, our families and our country in the days ahead.

Today, I am honoured to represent FSD Kenya at the UK Africa Investment Summit in London. I am inspired by the potential of the entrepreneurs, investors, government officials and civil society organisations who are full of ideas, solutions, and drive to leverage connections and learning across the continent to grow Africa’s economy and wellbeing.

Technology has changed how services are developed and delivered to customers. Regulators are hard-pressed to figure out how to respond, what to regulate, and what to leave aside.

The first article in a blog series examining the Kenyan credit market by FSD Kenya drew an analogy between the recent forest fires in the Amazon Jungle and the explosion of digital credit in Kenya.

Digital credit has been instrumental in granting formal credit in ways that were not conceivable a decade ago. It has provided individuals with the tools to manage their day-to-day needs and working capital for small enterprises.

Combining education, apprenticeship, and start-up capital to surmount barriers and transform trajectories 

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.

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.

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

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.

Financial Sector Deepening-Kenya is proud to be a supporting partner of Dignity and Debt‘s project that involves the use of AI to marshal citizen voices about their experiences with digital credit.

Joseph and Alice are not real people, but the impact of behavioral research on consumer protection is anything but hypothetical. Across the world, consumer protection authorities have been using behavioral research to inform everything from post-financial crisis rules for mortgage brokers to regulations on new mobile and app-based financial services.

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

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.

Insights into the social value of financial services

This is the third blog in a series about Financial Service Associations (FSAs) and their potential for growth and customer value creation based on an FSD Kenya commissioned survey by BFA.  Read the first blog here: Financial services associations: an imperfect solution and the second blog here: FSA asset financing: when paying more yields more.

This is the second blog in a series about Financial Service Associations (FSAs) and their potential for growth and customer value creation based on an FSD Kenya commissioned survey by BFA. The survey took place in 2017 in Bamba, Kakeani and Mukuyuni and involved in-depth interviews with over 60 respondents including customers, their non-member neighbours and FSA staff.