He opens with \u201cthe paradox of Kenya\u2019s success, where dominant first movers exploit persistent network effects\u201d. A network effect means a service grows more useful as more people join. M-Pesa currently enjoys\u00a088.8% of mobile money subscriptions<\/a>\u00a0as of June 2026.<\/p>\n Why there is a new Bill<\/p>\n Kenya\u2019s payments law is the 2011 National Payment System Act. The\u00a0draft Policy<\/a>\u00a0says the Act and the 2014 rules aren\u2019t fully aligned with instant payments, digital currencies and cross-border payments, and that consumer protection has gaps. The Policy is the government\u2019s plan. The Bill is the law that would replace the Act and carry it out. If passed, it would:<\/p>\n During Patrick Njoroge\u2019s tenure, CBK approved transfers between Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom wallets in\u00a0April 2018<\/a>\u00a0and launched the\u00a0National Payments Strategy 2022 to 2025<\/a>, which the Policy says it builds on.<\/p>\n Who gets the interest on your wallet<\/p>\n According to the law right now, mobile money providers must put the money you hold in your wallet into a trust fund, placed in banks or government securities that earn interest. They can\u2019t mix it with their own money.<\/p>\n When Vodafone sold M-Pesa\u2019s trust operator in September 2023, M-Pesa customers were owed about \u20ac1.16 billion, or KES 171 billion, the\u00a0last figure in Vodafone\u2019s filings<\/a>. At rates from 3.53% (average savings) to 8.78% (Treasury bills), that would earn roughly KES 6 billion to KES 15 billion a year. That\u2019s our estimate; we found no published figure for what the trusts earn.<\/p>\n The rule goes back to M-Pesa\u2019s 2007 launch, when CBK let Safaricom run it outside banking law on condition that\u00a0the interest couldn\u2019t go to Safaricom or its customers<\/a>. In 2014,\u00a0new regulations<\/a>\u00a0made it law: trust income is to be donated to a public charity. For M-Pesa that is the M-Pesa Foundation, which received\u00a0KES 8.5 billion from the trust operator in the year to March 2018<\/a>.<\/p>\n Regulators usually\u00a0treat paying interest as banking<\/a>, which needs a licence. However, sharing the trust\u2019s earnings can be legally different, and by 2021 payouts hadn\u2019t drained bank deposits anywhere.<\/p>\n What he wants, and what it would change<\/p>\n Njoroge calls the charity rule \u201ca holdover from the industry\u2019s nascent phase\u201d. Balances were expected to stay small and fears of competing with banks \u201chave dissipated\u201d, he says, and wallets are the customer\u2019s \u201clegal financial property\u201d. He wants regular payouts of what the trust earns beyond its costs, as he notes Tanzania, Uganda and Ghana already pay.<\/p>\n The sums per person would be small. Ghana\u2019s customers get\u00a0around 4% a year<\/a>, so KES 1,000 kept for a year would earn roughly KES 40. It would arrive on the wallet itself, not in a separate fund like\u00a0Ziidi<\/a>. The M-Pesa Foundation could lose some funding.<\/p>\n The 2014 rules say trust income \u201cshall\u201d go to charity. The 2026 National Payment System Bill\u2019s clause 40 says it \u201cmay\u201d, with CBK approval, go to charity \u201cor such other purpose as may be prescribed\u201d, meaning set later. That leaves room for payouts without requiring them.<\/p>\n What else he proposesAgent sharingHe wants: agent sharing named as a goal, so any customer could use any agent and agents could run one combined float.Today: agents, the shops where people deposit and withdraw cash, need a separate contract, device and float (the e-money balance they serve customers with) for each provider. CBK said in April 2022 that agents would follow, but by\u00a0October 2024<\/a>\u00a0interoperability still relied on costly one-to-one deals, like Airtel Money\u2019s\u00a0one-way deal with KCB agents<\/a>.The drafts: the Policy is silent on it. The draft Bill\u2019s clause 28 would let CBK order deals with providers \u201cand their agents\u201d, but doesn\u2019t mention shared float.FraudHe wants: principles on preventing fraud, who carries the loss, and how victims get money back.Today:\u00a0bank fraud losses<\/a>\u00a0rose almost fourfold, from KES 412.5 million in 2023 to KES 1.59 billion in 2024. Since 2014 a provider\u00a0is liable<\/a>\u00a0for payments made without the customer\u2019s knowledge, unless it shows the customer was at fault or the instruction looked genuine, so disputes reach court.The drafts: the Policy promises \u201cliability and fraud prevention frameworks\u201d. The Bill has no matching rule.Offline paymentsHe wants: ways to pay when a network is down, which he calls \u201ca major vulnerability\u201d.The drafts: the Policy never mentions them.The government\u2019s roleHe wants: principles for any direct state role, \u201cas a market participant, as distinct from its roles as policymaker and regulator\u201d, since CBK oversees both public and private systems. A platform replacing eCitizen, the government payments portal, may be appropriate. Competing with private firms would be \u201cproblematic\u201d. He says the national instant payment switch, moving money between banks and wallets in seconds, will probably be the first test.Today: the Treasury sets policy and CBK regulates. The Treasury holds\u00a019.76% of KCB<\/a>\u00a0and a stake in Safaricom.The drafts: the Policy commits the Government to develop the switch and doesn\u2019t say who would own it. The Bill would let CBK \u201cestablish, own or operate\u201d payment clearing and settlement systems within its mandate, and exempt some state enterprises from licensing, though not from CBK authorisation.The other side: Safaricom and the Kenya Bankers Association\u00a0argued in 2025<\/a>\u00a0that a state-led switch could cost at least KES 25.9 billion and take up to four years, and proposed upgrading the bank-owned Pesalink instead.Groups that own a payment serviceHe wants: them stopped from charging outside rivals more than their own companies, with outsiders served on \u201cfair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms\u201d.ConsentHe wants: data shared only with \u201cexplicit, informed, and revocable consent\u201d, meaning you can withdraw it.The drafts: the Policy never uses the word. The Bill requires consent before CBK can order data sharing.Barriers to financial inclusionHe wants: the Policy to name rural connectivity, social norms affecting women, missing ID among young people and phone costs. It doesn\u2019t.How the Policy fitsHe wants: it to say whether it replaces the 2022 to 2025 strategy and how it fits other plans, warning of \u201cchasing multiple rabbits\u201d. It says it builds on the strategy but not whether it replaces it.How to comment<\/p>\n Email\u00a0paymentslawreview@centralbank.go.ke<\/a>\u00a0by Friday 9th October 2026 using CBK\u2019s\u00a0template for the Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr Patrick Njoroge, who led the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) from June 2015 to June 2023, wants…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[342,111,139,69,145],"class_list":["post-616288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-mobile","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Turn](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Tech-ish-KES-02.jpg\")
<\/a>Raise the capital e-money issuers, the firms that create the money in mobile wallets, must hold from KES 20 million to KES 250 million.Make providers connect their systems to other providers and their agents, so a customer of one network can pay or cash out on another (interoperability).Let CBK order providers to share your data with other companies, with your consent.<\/p>\n