Kenya's CBK Licenses 54 Digital Lenders in 90 Days as Mobile Lending Tops $1.27 Billion
Kenya's Central Bank has licensed 54 digital credit providers over a 90-day period, with a further 29 licences bringing the regulated total to 281, as the mobile lending market surpasses $1.27 billion and the broader regulated digital credit market nearly doubles to KSh110 billion. The pace of licensing is being described as a regulatory inflection point for Kenya's formal digital credit oversight framework.
Kenya's Lending Licences: the court ruling made this whole wave inevitable
281 licensed lenders sounds like a regulator finally in control of its market.
But the forcing function wasn't policy ambition — it was a Kenyan court's ruling earlier this year that unlicensed lenders cannot sue borrowers to recover debts. The moment a lender's entire enforcement power evaporates without a licence, getting licensed stops being a compliance checkbox and becomes a basic commercial survival question.
The CBK has received over 900 applications since 2022. Only 281 have been approved. The queue didn't suddenly shorten — the legal stakes suddenly rose. That's what 54 new licences in 90 days actually tells you.
3 sources
- CBK licenses 54 digital lenders in 3 months as mobile lending tops $1.27bn · technext24.com · T2
- CBK licenses 29 more digital lenders · techtrendske.co.ke · T2
- More lenders, more products, more loans: Kenya’s digital credit market expands · techtrendske.co.ke · T2