Long-form conversations with the people designing, regulating and operating financial systems.
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.
Thought Leaders · 7 Sept 2026 · 10 min read
Tala began with one lender learning enough about one woman to trust her. Fifteen years later, its systems have served more than 15 million people. Siroya’s unfinished work is to ensure that the financial identity Tala creates becomes an asset for the borrower, not only an advantage for the lender.
Digital Lending · 6 Sept 2026 · 12 min read
James Mwangi grew up watching formal finance exclude families like his. He later left a senior banking career to help rescue an insolvent building society and turn it into a regional group with KSh2.16 trillion in assets. More than three decades later, Equity's hardest task is to preserve its purpose, controls and judgement at a scale that no longer resembles the institution he joined.
CEO Spotlight · 28 Aug 2026 · 18 min read
Paul Russo’s rise from human resources to the top of KCB Group has been defined by difficult assignments, from helping reopen Chase Bank and rehabilitating National Bank to cleaning up KCB’s loan book and reshaping leadership across a seven-country footprint. With assets now above KSh2 trillion, profits at record levels and new bets on payments and fintech infrastructure, his harder task is institutional: turning a people-led leadership philosophy into systems, local management and controls strong enough to hold together a regional banking group at scale.
CEO Spotlight · 25 Aug 2026 · 16 min read
Dr Gideon Muriuki took charge of Co-operative Bank in 2001 after a KSh2.3 billion loss and has since helped build it into a group approaching KSh1 trillion in assets, with record profits, millions of customers and an expanding financial-services portfolio. But after 25 years at the helm, the defining question is shifting from turnaround to succession: whether Co-op Bank can convert the judgement, relationships and institutional discipline accumulated under one chief executive into a governance structure capable of sustaining growth without depending on him.
CEO Spotlight · 25 Aug 2026 · 13 min read
After 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.
20 Aug 2026 · 13 min read
UFAA holds billions in an audited Trust Fund. Its harder test is whether a custodian can grow faster than it restores ownership.
Policy & Regulation · 20 Aug 2026 · 20 min read
Kenya has long had the market, talent and digital-finance infrastructure to anchor regional capital, but lacked the legal and fiscal architecture that made Mauritius, Dubai and Singapore credible financial centres. NIFC Africa is beginning to close that gap with statutory tax incentives, international recognition and a growing pipeline of certified firms, giving CEO Daniel Mainda a potentially transformative mandate: convert Nairobi’s fintech strength into the institutional infrastructure through which global capital enters Africa.
Policy & Regulation · 19 Aug 2026 · 22 min read
When banks pushed back against M-Pesa and Kenya had no dedicated rules for mobile money, acting Finance Minister John Michuki backed an audit that ultimately affirmed the service as a low-value retail money transfer platform rather than banking. That decision captured the technology-friendly approach of the Kibaki era and helped give M-Pesa the regulatory room to scale, laying foundations for Kenya’s emergence as Africa’s leading fintech market.
Thought Leaders · 19 Aug 2026 · 6 min read
If Kenya had an ICT Hall of Fame today, Dr. Bitange Ndemo would undoubtedly be the first to earn a star.
Thought Leaders · 19 Aug 2026 · 7 min read
Safaricom’s masking of M-PESA numbers is more than a simple privacy upgrade—it is a battle for control of Kenya's digital finance infrastructure. As critical identifiers vanish, the regulatory focus shifts from data access to data control and portability.
Payments · 18 Aug 2026 · 12 min read