Financial Services

As Kenya’s insurers respond to increasing competition by seeking new routes to premium, technology is playing a markedly important role in the market. In 2016 the Association of Kenya Insurers (AKI) remarked upon the rising popularity of so-called insurtech solutions, noting in its annual report that digitalisation is reducing customer friction points, and insurers are...

The STANLIB Fahari I-REIT (FAHR) is the only listed REIT on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE). FAHR is an income REIT (I-REIT), which is a type of REIT that owns and manages income-generating real estate for the benefit of its shareholders. I-REITs are required to distribute at least 80% of their income as dividends. With the listing of...

For many years Kenya’s interaction with the global exchange-traded fund (ETF) arena was a passive one. The nation’s reputation as a lively frontier market meant that it was frequently a component of foreign-based ETFs which targeted global investors with an interest in the potentially higher returns of emerging markets. For instance, in the US...

Kenya’s stock exchange has played a vital role in the expansion of the nation’s economy for six decades. In terms of market capitalisation, it is the leading bourse in the East African region. As well as being a founding member of the African Securities Exchanges Association and the East African Securities Exchanges Association (EASEA), the bourse was promoted from affiliate...

Fixed income was billed as an attractive asset class in the capped-interest-rate era. This seems to be borne out by the fact that commercial banks increased their holdings of domestic debt by the equivalent of 2.23% of GDP in 2017, intensifying their grip on safer asset classes in lieu of riskier credit lending. Commercial banks accounted for...