Author: David Indeje

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has said it will launch a service that gives a mark of approval to mobile lending firms, in a bid to protect customers from unregulated mobile lenders. Dr. Patrick Njoroge, Governor of Central Bank on Monday said there are two sets of digital lenders in the financial markets where one group is regulated because they are operated by commercial banks while the others are not. “The credit only digital lenders that provide lending on mobile phones are not regulated and this is a major gap in the law,” Njoroge said during the inaugural Afro-Asia…

Spanish on-demand delivery firm Glovo, has onboarded Java House, Naivas Supermarket, Zucchini Greengrocers and Onn The Way Supermarket to increase the number of people accessing its services across strategic business fields. William Benthall, Glovo’s General Manager for Kenya, said that the partnerships will greatly benefit consumers of Glovo’s service, enabling them to interact with their favourite brands at the tap of a button. “In the long run these partnerships will help us achieve our broader strategy of being a single platform for all our customer’s needs and deliveries,”  said Benthall. Since its entry into the Kenyan Market in January this…

Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE)  launched the trading of futures contracts on Thursday becoming the second bourse to offer exchange-traded derivatives after South Africa’s Johannesburg Stock Exchange. “The newly launched NEXT Derivatives Market will enhance investors’ portfolio performance by availing risk management tools in the wake of increasing asset price volatility in both domestic and international markets,” said the NSE chief executive Geoffrey Odundo during the launch. The Next Derivatives Market, will offer investors index futures contracts on the NSE-25 share index and single stock futures.  This involves the most traded companies at the NSE: Safaricom Plc, Equity Group Holdings, KenGen,…

The Nairobi Securities Exchange Derivatives Market (NEXT) went live on Thursday with the trading of selected indices and single stock futures. This involves the most traded companies at the NSE: Safaricom Plc, Equity Group Holdings, KenGen, KCB Group, East African Breweries Ltd, British American Tobacco Kenya Plc and Bamburi Cement Ltd. The platform will also trade equity index futures before introducing other derivatives like forward contracts and swaps. “NEXT provides new opportunities to investors, enabling them to better diversify their portfolios, manage risk and deploy capital more efficiently,” said the NSE in a statement. NEXT will also enable Kenya to…

Safaricom Plc, Kenya’s biggest telecoms company has said it’s Chief Executive Officer Robert William Collymore died Monday morning after a long battle with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. He was 61 years old. https://twitter.com/SafaricomPLC/status/1145558372898488320 “It is with deep sorrow that we announce the passing away of Robert (Bob) William Collymore, CEO of Safaricom Plc, which occurred at his home in the morning of 1st July 2019,” the firm said in a statement. “He fought this cancer with great courage, with everything he had, and he continued to give leadership to the company, for which we are truly grateful,” said Safaricom Chairman Nicholas…

Digital Lenders Association of Kenya (DLAK) have signed a code of conduct that will help the body to self regulate in the dynamic digital lending landscape. According to the DLAK chairman Robert Masinde, “The rules and regulations that we are planning to adapt are a self-regulation initiative for the benefit of our consumers.” Part of the conduct is to cap initial lending at a maximum of KSh4,000 to customers with no credit history. “Permission should be requested for individual sets of data that the borrower is granting access to. In the case of shared contact networks between borrowers, such as…