Author: Korir Issa

Standard Bank has moved more than $1 billion through China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System in the space of a single year, a sign of how fast trade between Africa and China now moves. The lender, Africa’s largest bank by assets, became the first bank on the continent authorised to process transactions through CIPS. It received approval in June 2025 at the Lujiazui Forum in Shanghai and has since carried over CNY 8 billion, roughly $1.2 billion, through the system. What started in South Africa has already spread to Angola, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho and Tanzania, giving clients across several major trade…

Kenya’s Court of Appeal has ruled that county health workers kept on repeated short term contracts for years must be treated as permanent and pensionable staff, delivering a judgment that could reshape how public and private employers across the country classify casual labour. The three judge bench sitting in Nyeri, comprising Justices S. ole Kantai, Joyce Lesiit and Fatuma Sichale Ali-Aroni, delivered the ruling on July 24, 2026 in Civil Appeal No. 178 of 2020, Kenya County Government Workers’ Union versus Embu County Government and the Embu County Government Public Service Board. Legal analysts reviewing the decision noted that its…

Kenya has drawn a hard line for anyone wanting to run a crypto business within its borders. The Central Bank of Kenya has gazetted new rules requiring virtual asset firms, from stablecoin issuers to token exchanges, to hold specific amounts of capital before they can legally operate, closing the final gap in a regulatory framework that has been years in the making. The rules arrive through Legal Notice No. 134 of 2026, published in the Kenya Gazette Supplement on 22 July. They complete the licensing and operating framework for virtual asset service providers, giving Kenya’s crypto sector a clear rulebook…

M-KOPA has crossed 10 million customers across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa, a milestone the pan African fintech reached just six years after signing its first million. The company announced the figure on 22 July 2026 from its London base, marking one of the fastest scale ups in African financial services. It took M-KOPA eight years, from its first solar sale in 2012, to reach one million customers in 2020. Since then, growth has accelerated sharply: the company added nine million more customers in the six years that followed, and now onboards roughly 10,000 new customers every day.…

SBM Bank Kenya has become the first Kenyan lender to release its first half 2026 earnings, and the numbers set a high bar for the rest of the sector. Profit before tax jumped 171% to KSh 548 million for the six months ended June 30, up from KSh 202 million in the same period last year. Profit after tax rose 88.2% to KSh 380.17 million, a smaller percentage gain than the pretax figure but still one of the strongest half year turnarounds among Kenyan banks so far this year. The Numbers Behind the Turnaround Operating profit nearly quadrupled, rising 279%…

Kenya’s National Treasury has released a compressed budget calendar for the 2027/28 financial year, alongside the numbers behind the current 2026/27 budget and a look back at how the outgoing 2025/26 budget actually performed. The country goes to the polls in August 2027, which means every constitutional and statutory deadline in the budget process must clear before a new administration takes over. That single fact reshapes the entire calendar. Why the Timeline Has Tightened Government budgets normally follow a set rhythm stretched across most of the year. This cycle compresses that rhythm. Treasury officials must finish the Budget Policy Statement,…