The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) launched this Wednesday, February 23, the National Payments Strategy at an event that brought together representatives of key regional and international institutions. The document covers the period 2022-2025 and aims to consolidate the gains made since then in the Mobile Money sub-sector, and “to pave the way towards a new chapter in the payment journey in Kenya”.
“Since the advent of Mobile Money nearly two decades ago, Kenya has achieved significant milestones on its journey to modernize and strengthen the payment system. While cash remains an important means of payment, Kenyans earn around 176 billion Ksh (about 1.5 billion USD) through more than 37.6 million transactions per day through various non-cash channels,” reads a statement from press published by the central bank.
“The strategy unveiled today aims to realize the vision of a secure, fast, efficient and collaborative payment system that supports financial inclusion and innovations that benefit Kenyans. This vision will be anchored on five fundamental principles: trust, security, usefulness, choice and innovation,” the document continues.
It should be noted that the use of mobile payments was accelerated in Kenya following the outbreak of the Covid-19 crisis, in particular with the measures put in place by the government and the central bank to combat the transmission of the virus. Among them, the elimination of fees on transactions of an amount equal to or less than 9.17 dollars, the free deposit of money from a mobile account to a bank account and the increase in the volume of daily transactions from 1,376 dollars to $2,752.
