General Information

Population

57.9M

Online population

27.4M

Currency

KES

Market overview

Population - 57,9M

At the start of 2025, 30.3**%** of Kenya’s population lived in urban centres, while 69.7**%** lived in rural areas.

Internet penetration - 48%

There were 27.4 million internet users in Kenya at the start of 2025.

FinTech Outlook: Trends, Insight & Technology

In 2025, Kenya hosts an estimated 150–220 fintech companies, about 210 of which are based in Nairobi, confirming its position as one of Africa’s top three fintech markets, alongside Nigeria and South Africa. At the heart of this transformation is M-Pesa, launched in 2007 by Safaricom, which revolutionized access to finance and became a global benchmark for mobile payments.

By June 2025, mobile-money services reached an estimated 91% of adults with 47.7 million active subscriptions, turning digital payments into daily habits and extending financial access far beyond the reach of traditional banks. Yet, parts of the population still struggle to access affordable, reliable financial tools.

Over the past few years, a diverse generation of startups has emerged—spanning digital lending, peer-to-peer payments, insurance, and investment platforms—reshaping how individuals and businesses transact. As the sector matured, regulators stepped in: the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) introduced licensing regimes, data-protection requirements, and frameworks for digital-credit providers and virtual-asset operators, balancing innovation with consumer protection.

The main ongoing challenge is inclusivity: ensuring these innovations reach rural, informal, and lower-income communities without reproducing risks of debt traps, data misuse, or monopolistic concentration. Kenya remains a continental pioneer, not only in mobile money but in building the frameworks that could define Africa’s digital-finance future.

As of 2025, Kenya’s fintech scene in 2025 is buzzing with growth, regulation, and experimentation:

• The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) licensed 41 extra digital credit providers in June 2025, bringing the total to about 126. This is part of the push to regulate fintech lending and protect consumers.
• In September 2025, Kenya added 27 more digital-lenders, taking the total to around 153 licensed providers — showing how the lending ecosystem is still expanding but now under closer supervision. Over 140 Digital Credit Providers (DCPs) lend via apps but cannot take deposits. This setup makes Kenya a mobile-finance leader, even though “digital banks” operate under traditional banking rules.
• The CBK published a draft for **Non-Deposit Taking Credit Providers (NDTCPs)** regulations in August 2025, broadening oversight beyond “digital lenders” to all entities issuing credit without taking deposits. Digital Credit Providers (DCPs): offer loans via mobile apps or platforms, often short‑term or microloans, sometimes without holding deposits. Examples include Tala, Branch, or Okash.
• Kenya’s payments ecosystem is projected to grow at ~14.1% CAGR between 2024-28 and hit ~$14.5 billion by 2028 — mobile money still dominates and fintechs are expanding into card payments, merchant gateways and SME tools.
• One key trend: besides payments, fintechs are focusing more on embedded finance (finance built into other services), virtual assets/crypto, and cybersecurity/data-privacy as the rules tighten.
• The fintech market in Kenya is now acknowledged as “maturing”: there are many players, but signs of saturation, duplication and investor caution are emerging — innovation needs to keep pace with regulation.