The Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) has approved the acquisition of 51 per cent of all issued shares of Smep Microfinance Bank by Hope Advancement without conditions. Hope Advancement Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hope International, a charitable entity registered in the United States of America. SMEP Microfinance Bank is a public company incorporated in Kenya that offers financial services with a focus on group, SME and church banking. “The approval has been granted based on the finding that the transaction is unlikely to negatively impact competition concerns nor elicit negative public interest concerns, the two key considerations during…
Author: Muindi
Muindi
Experience working on communication and marketing departments and in the broadcast industry. Interested in sustainable development and international relations issues.
RUBiS Energy Kenya has partnered with GirlsRunPeriod and the Women Development Centre (WODEC) to host the GirlsRun event for a second year to promote girls’ health and well-being. In addition to supporting women’s economic opportunities to end period poverty across Kenya. The run was held in Kapsisiywa, Nandi County and brought together over 3,000 girls from local schools who benefitted from the distribution of Sanikits and the provision of menstrual health education. RUBiS Energy Kenya Group Managing Director, Mr Jean-Christian Bergeron said that a key component of their commitment to being a responsible company is to bring a positive impact…
KCB Group has reported a KSh9.75 billion net profit for the period ended March 31, 2023. The total assets rose by 39.8 per cent to close at Sh1.63 trillion on the back of the consolidation of its Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) subsidiary. The lender attributed the performance to a 26.9 per cent rise in revenues which closed the quarter at KSh36.9 billion, driven mainly by non-funded income (NFIs) from customer transactions across the Group network and consolidation of Trust Merchant Bank (TMB), the Group’s newest subsidiary in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Group Chief Executive Paul Russo said the…
Safaricom, Kenya’s biggest telecoms operator, plans to set up a factory in Kenya that will assemble between 1.2 million and 1.4 million smartphones annually. The cheapest device will retail at Ksh 11,500. However, new taxes on mobile phones proposed in the Finance Bill, 2023, make the devices costly, as the levies will push the price up by 40 per cent. Safaricom’s Head of Ventures, Karanja Gichiri, appearing before the parliamentary Finance and Planning committee on Tuesday, said that if they were to work with the President’s vision of a 50-dollar phone, they needed to address the question of import, excise,…
Netflix has begun clamping down on password sharing according to its revised policy. “Your Netflix account is for you and the people you live with — your household,” Netflix said Tuesday. This means Netflix will restrict viewership of its programming to people living in the same household. Account holders can add more people outside of the household for an extra $7.99 a month, or they can use the “transfer profile” feature to prompt extra users to make their own accounts that they pay for. In April, the video streamer said more than 100 million households are using a shared password, including 30…
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Kenya have reached a staff-level agreement worth KSh 56.58 billion ($410 million). The agreement includes the latest review of Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangements and a new arrangement under the fund’s Resilience and Sustainability Facility. If approved, the arrangements provide access to a total amount of SDR1.818 billion (about US$2.43 billion at the current exchange rate). The mission led by Haimanot Teferra also considered Kenya’s request for access under the IMF’s Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) and further augmentation under the EFF/ECF. “The agreement is subject to IMF management…