“Barclays Bank Kenya has unveiled a digital platform known as Timiza – through which customers can access loans, save money, pay for services like an insurance premium, water, buy goods or any other product provided by the bank instantly.”

“Kenya has started review of the law on microfinance banking as it seeks to increase their role in providing financial services especially to the increasing number of small and medium scale enterprises, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has said.”

“Almost exactly a year ago, a report from an independent consultant to Kenya’s telecoms regulator, sparked uproar and panic. It recommended the government look into breaking up the dominant mobile operator Safaricom by spinning off the even more dominant mobile money service, M-Pesa. Now, the global consulting firm that made that controversial recommendation seems to have changed its mind and it’s not entirely clear why.”

“Docomo Digital has partnered with Safaricom to give customers the option to pay for content on the Google Play Store using M-Pesa, according to a press release. The integration, which is powered by Docomo Digital’s mobile commerce enabling platform using Google Play’s payment API, enables M-Pesa customers to use the mobile money service to pay for goods and services from the app store.”

“In the 5 years that it has been around, M-Shwari has had one of the biggest influences in boosting financial inclusion in the country and elevating the status of M-Pesa entirely. While it is a product offered under M-Pesa, thanks to M-Shwari, even financial institutions that were erstwhile very conservative in their ways, have had to open themselves more to the public so as to win their hearts, trust and confidence again. As a result, we have a slew of banking apps that also offer similar micro-loans to their users, without doubt inspired by M-Shwari.”