Author: David Indeje

DigiTruck achieves milestone of training 1,500 Youth in 10 Counties in 1st Year  Chinese technology firm, Huawei, pledged to support its DigiTruck, a digital skill training project to rural communities in Kenya through mobile digital classrooms, for a 2nd year.  In its first year, the all solar-powered, mobile classrooms have been used to train more than 1,500 youth on digital skills across 13 locations in 10 Counties.  The announcement was made in Kitui to commence four weeks of digital skills training for youth helping them do business and work online.   Cabinet Secretary for ICT, Innovation and Youth Affairs, Joe Mucheru presided over the…

The Co-operative Bank of Kenya on Friday issued a profit warning for its full year financial results, saying earnings were being hit loan loss provisions and losses from its South Sudan operations.  “The board of directors of Co-op Bank wishes to announce that the bank’s full year earnings for the 2020 financial year are projected to be materially lower than the earnings reported for the same period in 2019,” the bank disclosed in line with regulations. “As expected, loan loss provisions have been much higher than in the previous year in appreciation of the challenges that the businesses and households continue to…

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) raised KSh 13, 840.6 Million from the weekly Treasury Bills Auction held on Thursday, an undersubscription of 65.7%.  On behalf of the National Treasury, it had targeted KSh 24 Billion from the domestic market.  Investors opted for the longer-term KSh 10 Billion 364 days Treasury Bill where bids worth KSh 10.02 Billion was received and a similar amount accepted by CBK, representing an oversubscription of 100.21%.  The 182-day Treasury Bill, worth KSh 10 Billion received bids worth KSh 4,999.7 Million, a performance of 50% after the CBK accepted KSh 3.1 Billion.  Debt service in January amounts to Ksh.174.7 billion, a 137.3% increase over debt service in December 2020. This…

Users of messaging platform WhatsApp are required to agree to share their personal information with Facebook according to new terms and conditions.  This means that the WhatsApp, a Facebook-owned chat app users will have to accept, or stop using the end-to-end encrypted chat app.  “As part of the Facebook Companies, WhatsApp receives information from, and shares information with, the other Facebook Companies,” WhatsApp privacy policy, updated stated.  “We may use the information we receive from them, and they may use the information we share with them, to help operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services and their offerings,…

The National Treasury raised Ksh 55.9 billion as new proceeds from its 2-year bond (FXD1/2021/2) against a Ksh 25 billion target. The bond attracted bids worth Ksh.61.2 billion equivalent to 244.6% subscription rate. “We attribute the oversubscription to the bonds short tenor, as well as high demand from banks looking for short term liquidity investments,” said Sterling Capital Research. Central Bank of Kenya auctioned the bond at 9.486%. On the other hand, NCBA Market Research said the bond issue coincides with about Ksh 75 billion in T-bill maturities.  They note it bodes well for the government’s public debt maturity lengthening…

Local airline Fly540 has hit back at the International Association of Travel Agents (IATA) after being suspended from participating in its automated ticketing system. IATA did not disclose the reason for suspending the carrier but cited guidelines relating to failure to honour payments owed to agents through the billing and settlement plan. Fly540 through its official Tweeter feed said IATA’s issues revolve around the bank settlement Plan used by agents to pay. According to IATA’s December 30 letter, all accredited travel agents were directed to suspend all Fly540 ticketing activities. The airline noted that it has been out of this…