Njuguna Ndung’u helped keep the regulatory door open while M-PESA grew from an experiment into national infrastructure. After serving in President William Ruto’s Treasury, he now says the President overruns institutions and makes officials conform through fear. His life’s argument about strong institutions has become a test of his own public record.
By Precursor · Thought Leaders · 10 min read · 7 September 2026
The method
What customers, merchants and informal operators are already doing that product teams haven't understood.
The rails, standards and identity systems that determine who can build, connect and compete.
Draft provisions and appointments that change the probability of what comes next.
Where consumers compensate for a system that technically works but practically disappoints.
Who gains control over data, pricing, identity and access when a technical change lands.
A Bill sponsored by Aldai MP Marianne Kitany seeks to make internet usage and billing more transparent, but its four clauses leave undefined what providers must measure, how customers should be charged and what data regulators may collect. Without clearer rules on pricing, privacy, accuracy and implementation, the proposal could raise compliance costs, favour larger ISPs and create a nationwide usage-tracking architecture without directly solving the problem that inspired it: expiring data and unclear value for consumers.
Policy & Regulation · 9 min read
M-PESA has become systemically important to Kenya’s economy, but the businesses that depend most heavily on its APIs, merchant infrastructure and settlement systems often have the least freedom to challenge how those rails are governed. The next phase of Kenya’s payments market will therefore depend less on breaking up Safaricom than on stronger developer standards, portable customer data, clearer competition rules and a credible Fast Payment System that lets fintechs and non-bank providers compete without building their businesses entirely on another company’s permission.
20 min read
Safaricom and Airtel Kenya have reshaped their data menus in opposite directions, cutting the effective cost of mainstream monthly connectivity while reducing or restricting the small, short-duration bundles used by customers with irregular incomes. The result is a widening affordability divide in a market where two operators control more than 96% of subscriptions: planned, high-volume internet access is becoming cheaper, but the smallest unit of connectivity is becoming more expensive, less flexible and, at key hours, harder to buy.
Consumer protection & Product pricing · 29 min read
Conversations with the people designing, regulating and operating financial systems
Partner ContentAfter 15 years in corporate technology, Gatwĩri Njogu-Mokaya left to tackle a problem she had watched affect farmers in her own family: working for months without access to their earnings. VunaPay now works with 40 cooperatives to digitise farmers and accelerate payments through financing partners including KCB Bank and a government fund, while Njogu-Mokaya sets her sights on expanding the model beyond Kenya to smallholders across Africa and other emerging markets.
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