On 18 March 2022, the Central Bank of Kenya
("CBK") published regulations giving
itself power to regulate and provide oversight to digital lenders.
This is on the backdrop that digital lenders/providers have been
operating unregulated within the Kenyan market.
The Digital Credit Providers Regulations, 2022 operationalise
the provisions of the Central Bank of Kenya (Amendment) Act, 2021,
which was assented to on 7 December 2021 and became effective on 23
December 2021. The Act required that the Regulations must be made
within three months of the Act coming into force and therefore they
became operational immediately.
Licensing of digital credit providers
Under the Regulations, a person can only engage in digital
credit business if they are:
