Kenyan lenders are scaling digital alliances as the banking sector adapts to rapid technology adoption, shifting consumer expectations, and growth in mobile-led finance. Partnerships between Kenyan banks and fintech firms have risen sharply in 2025, driven by competitive pressure, regulation supporting integration, and long-term revenue opportunities.
Analysts expect the projection of fintech revenues across Africa to increase to $47 billion by 2028 from $10 billion in 2023, making digital ecosystems a key focus for banks aiming to protect deposits, grow fee income, and retain relevance in a fast-changing payments market.
Digital payments projections in Kenya show a 14.1% compound annual growth rate, reaching $14.54 billion by 2028 as consumers shift from cash to mobile wallets, QR payments, and card-linked solutions.
Kenya’s fintech penetration sits near 15%, more than twice the continental average of roughly 5–6%. This momentum has created strong incentives for lenders to work with fintech platforms rather than build competing systems from scratch, particularly as operating costs and cybersecurity risks rise.
Over 83% of adults accessing formal financial services digitally in Kenya use mobile channels for transactions, bill payments, and credit tools. Despite this progress, underserved groups, such as informal traders, rural populations, and small businesses, still face hurdles obtaining working capital and insurance.
Banks, limited by legacy systems and physical-branch cost structures, are embedding fintech capabilities to scale digital credit scoring, automated onboarding, and biometric authentication. These digital rails mirror features popularised by mobile-money platforms, including M-Pesa, which processes roughly 61 million daily transactions for more than 50 million users.
Equity Bank expanded remittance and payments integrations, including a September 2025 partnership with NALA and Pesalink to support faster cross-border transfers, and a 2024 Mastercard agreement enabling card-linked payments to 30 countries.
KCB Group is combining technology investment with ownership stakes. It announced a minority acquisition in Pesapal in October 2025, pending Central Bank of Kenya approval, to support QR payments, online gateways, and point-of-sale solutions for merchants.
Earlier in March 2025, KCB purchased 75% of Riverbank Solutions, adding SME-focused APIs and bulk-payments tools to its digital portfolio.
I&M Bank has sustained digital platform upgrades, extending its partnership with Backbase into 2025 to offer personalised digital banking journeys. In June 2025, it rolled out AI-powered anti-money laundering tools through ThetaRay, coupled with biometric authentication to strengthen fraud mitigation. I&M also continues working with Safaricom’s M-Pesa under the AFIK initiative launched in April 2025, supporting low-cost merchant loans targeting rural and peri-urban communities.
NCBA Bank broadened its consumer-tech finance segment by launching LOOP Flex with bolttech in September 2025, combining device financing and insurance under a buy-now-pay-later model. It has also expanded M-Shwari services and rolled out MoKash in partnership with MTN Mobile Money and Vodacom to support regional micro-savings and lending.
Results? Automated onboarding has reduced servicing times and lowered acquisition costs. Machine-learning models support fraud monitoring and real-time risk analysis, key considerations in high-volume mobile ecosystems. Banks also benefit from fintech agility in deploying QR-code payments, conversational banking, robo-advisory options, and automated savings tools, without long development cycles or large internal engineering investments.
Policy direction remains a catalyst. The Central Bank of Kenya’s push for open banking and interoperability has introduced simplified KYC frameworks, shared API standards, and rules enabling secure data exchange among banks, telcos, and digital-finance providers.
These initiatives have encouraged bank and fintechs partnerships in Kenya across merchant payments, cross-border transfers, micro-lending, and savings products. Regulatory clarity has also encouraged mergers, minority-stake deals, and technology-focused acquisitions, enabling lenders to scale digital infrastructure more efficiently.
Kenya’s mobile-subscription penetration exceeds 100%, and financial-services revenues are forecast to grow roughly 10% annually through 2028. Banks are prioritising new revenue pools in SME credit, e-commerce, payments processing, and diaspora finance. Payment-gateway providers such as Pesapal support this transition by enabling integrated mobile-money, card, and online settlement systems across retail and corporate channels.
Jefferson Wachira is a writer at Africa Digest News, specializing in banking and finance trends, and their impact on African economies.