Government and regulators

The Covid-19 pandemic is throwing a curved ball at us. It has made planning virtually impossible.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Kenya’s more successful mass market financial solutions have demonstrated the importance of social values by enabling poor Kenyans to manage their money in ways that cultivate their visions of well being.

There has been a considerable amount of commentary in the press recently on the stability of the savings and credit cooperatives (SACCO) sector in Kenya based on a report released by the FSD network.

The 3rd FSD Kenya annual lecture on financial inclusion was delivered by John Kay to a venue-packed audience of stakeholders from the financial sector industry. 

Over the past 10 years, FSD Kenya has worked to support the development of financial inclusion in Kenya. In 2015, we launched a series of annual public lectures on financial inclusion.  Our aim is to stimulate debate on this subject and its place in the long-term vision for the financial sector in Kenya.

Over 250 policymakers, industry players, regulators, lecturers, students, financial sector analysts, development practitioners and other guests gathered at the National Museum’s Louis Leakey Auditorium on Thursday 9th February 2017 for the 3rd FSD Kenya annual lecture on financial inclusion.

David Ferrand, Director of FSD Kenya, was part of a distinguished panel disucssing the role of central banks in financial inclusion at the CBK@50 symposium in Nairobi.

Kenya is seen widely as a ‘stand out’ success story on financial inclusion. The ten-year period from 2005 to 2015 witnessed enormous change in the financial sector.