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Vibrant social networks are what make Kenya unique and modern technology is making them functional.

Friends and family make for a happier and more fulfilled life but in Kenya, they’re also the key to survival.

Sending money to Africa is more expensive than anywhere else in the world, according to new research due to be published at this week’s Global Remittance Conference in New York. The report argues that existing technology – like regional automated clearing houses, remittance payment processing hubs and aggregators – could all make sending money from the UK to Africa much, much cheaper.

This quarter’s e-newsletter is out!

Pauline Kimari is a pharmacist in Ndaragwa, Kenya, a small town several hours’ drive north of Nairobi. She moved there from rural Muranga, several hours away, to open a small shop, Ndaragwa Joy Chemist. It is white with blue and green doors and a blue bench inside. She sells medicine and cosmetics.

I spent a week in Kenya, courtesy of Financial Sector Deepening, an initiative of a number of aid agencies, including Britain’s Department for International Development, the Swedish government, and the Gates Foundation. 

Leading British economist delivers third annual lecture on financial inclusion

In order to understand the take‐up, use, and impacts of M‐PESA in Kenya, US based Principal Investigators William Jack (Georgetown) and Tavneet Suri (MIT Sloan School of Management) conducted a set of five surveys across Kenya, starting in yearly between 2008 and 2011, with a fifth survey conducted in 2014 to look at the longer-term impacts of M-PESA.

Just what is finance for?

On Wednesday 8th February 2017, John Kay met with 18 financial sector industry leaders to discuss this question and the future of finance 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.

During his delivery of the 3rd FSD Kenya annual lecture on financial inclusion, John Kay argued that the challenge for emerging economies is to avoid the mistakes of the west and to instead focus on building a financial sector that is focussed on the core needs of the non-financial economy.

Leading British economist to deliver the 2017 lecture

John Kay is a renowned British economist, and until recently, a columnist with London’s Financial Times (FT).

Diversification of risk, not putting your eggs in one basket, hustling – whichever word or phrase you use, Robert, a boda boda (motorcycle taxi) rider, embodies this spirit.

Kenya’s annual financial inclusion lecture sets out how to protect consumers and drive growth in financial services

Rafe Mazer was the speaker at the 2nd FSD Kenya annual lecture on financial inclusion. His presentation shared how we can develop our own “test and learn” – the way in which financial service providers and regulators collaborate to allow for new solutions – for consumer protection.

The research is based on a long-term series of five surveys undertaken on M-Pesa in Kenya supported by FSD Kenya and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Registration is open!

This year’s annual lecture will be delivered by Rafe Mazer, a Financial sector specialist at CGAP.

Join us for what we expect will be a stimulating discussion on competition and consumer protection in Kenya’s financial sector.

Policymakers, academics, industry players, donors and other stakeholders gathered at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Thursday 8th December for the 2nd FSD Kenya annual lecture on financial inclusion.

This year, the price of a kilo of tea reached a five-year high. Every October, tea farmers in Kenya receive a “tea bonus”; the second lump sum payment for tea delivered to the Kenya Tea Development Authority (KTDA) during the year. The first lump sum, the “mini bonus”, is paid each April.

M-Shwari (meaning ‘calm’ in Kiswahili) is a combined savings and loans product launched through a collabo­ration between the Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) and Safaricom.

How exactly do financial services impact low income Kenyans? In this note, we extract the stories of eight respondent households from the Financial Diaries.

Self-employment is a major source of income for low income Kenyans, and Financial Diaries respondents are no exception. When we talked to respondents in 2015, two years after the close of the original Diaries, those whose economic lives were improving pointed to business returns as one of the main drivers of their success.

Our third “Field Friday” exercise reveals lessons for formal financial service providers to learn from informal services.

In late 2015, we followed up with Financial Diaries households to check in on their economic lives two years after the initial Diaries study ended. We wanted to know how they are doing now, the factors driving changes in their economic lives, and the role that financial services and financial choices were playing in their economic trajectories.

This report draws on Financial Diaries data from India, Kenya, and Mexico to enhance the field’s understanding of women’s financial lives, and to highlight provider-led opportunities to better serve this important market segment.

Financial institutions play a key role in enhancing trust in the financial system

Enthusiasm around the once-popular “Africa Rising” narrative is abating in the face of slower-than-expected growth, macro volatility deriving from continued reliance on raw material exports in many countries, and the reality of persistently high inequality.

To increase access to finance in the agricultural sector, various players have implemented initiatives to help smallholder farmers and pastoralists to access financial solutions. The many initiatives over time have had varying degrees of success.