Consumer protection diagnostic study - FSD Kenya

2 • CONSUMER PROTECTION DIAGNOSTIC STUDY: KENYA
provided by banks, mobile financial service providers, savings and
credit cooperatives (SACCOs), and microfinance institutions (MFIs). The
diagnostic also includes an examination of services closely associated with
these products (e.g., loan repayment or “credit protection” insurance, credit
information), to the extent that data were available.
Using data from multiple sources, the diagnostic team estimated the relative
use of different service providers by Kenyan financial consumers, so as to focus
the analysis on the most important players and issues. The most commonly
used services are informal - that is, money-lenders and very small saving-andloan
groups. More than nine million Kenyans use M-PESA and other mobile
payment services, and over the past few years the number of users of these
services has surpassed the number of bank account holders. Among formal
and semi-formal financial institutions, banks serve the most customers, with
SACCOs also playing an important role. Penetration into the mass market by
private insurance companies, providers of capital markets services, deposittaking
microfinance institutions (DMIs) and credit-only microfinance
institutions (MFIs) is relatively limited.
While information was gathered on capital markets, retirement products and
other forms of insurance, a detailed review of these other financial services
was postponed for future study because of their low penetration rates in the
mass market.