Category: Business Daily

Top banks have sustained the opening of new branches in the race to win new customers in emerging towns, defying the widespread shift toward digital banking.

Banks such as Equity Group, Co-operative Bank of Kenya, NCBA, DTB, I and M, Absa Bank Kenya, Kingdom Bank and Family Bank are betting on physical presence to win retail and business customers, even as mobile apps and internet platforms dominate day-to-day transactions in the country’s financial sector.

The flurry of branch openings by both large and mid-tier banks this year means the banking sector is sustaining the focus on brick-and-mortar model, having added 62 locations last year.

The lenders are using the physical branches in counties with growing commercial activity and improved infrastructure.

Central Bank of Kenya data shows mobile and internet banking transactions account for over 85 percent of total retail volumes. However, physical branches remain key for high-value transactions, customer verification and credit consultations, particularly in rural and semi-urban areas.

Branches still serve as trust anchors, with many customers still demanding to physically see the bank before they deposit or borrow. This has seen banks opt for co-existence between digital innovation and brick-and-mortar banking.

Co-op Bank on Wednesday last week opened a new branch at Laare in Meru. The Laare branch came barely two weeks after its subsidiary, Kingdom Bank, opened a branch in Bungoma town with eyes on the county’s agricultural, trade and hospitality sectors.

Co-op’s new branches add to the 16 that the lender opened last year when it crossed the 200 mark. Its move was in line with that of I and M Bank which in March this year opened three new branches -Mtwapa in Kilifi and Kawangware and ABC Mall in Nairobi.

I and M said in March it was targeting to add at least nine branches this year, mainly in the Central region (Kenol, Meru and Embu) and the larger Western Kenya region (Bungoma, Kakamega and Kericho).

In September, I and M opened new branches in Kapsabet and Nyali, raising its network to 65 outlets across 24 counties. In the previous year, it added at least eight, staying on its target to hit 100 by the end of next year.

Shameer Patel, director of retail business banking at I and M Bank Kenya said while digital is transforming how people transact, continued opening of physical branches demonstrates ‘being where our customers need us most.’

Equity Bank Kenya opened four new branches in July this year -in Bungoma, Kajiado, Mombasa and Kitui counties- joining other lenders in establishing their footprint in growth corridors. The lender’s new branches are targeting economic activities such as farming and fishing.

‘These new branches represent our strategic intent to not only expand our physical footprint but to also ensure tailored financial solutions and expert advice,’ said Equity Bank Kenya Managing Director- Moses Nyabanda, during the launch.

Meanwhile, Absa Bank Kenya opened its 87th branch in Kawangware in July, citing strong demand for personal and SME banking in high-density areas.

Smaller and mid-tier lenders are also joining the trend. Family Bank opened a new branch in Kilifi in June 2025, with eyes on small businesses. The bank’s CEO Nancy Njau said the move is all about ‘establishing a deeper connection’ with customers.

Similarly, Dubai Islamic Bank Kenya also launched a branch in South C, Nairobi, to serve the growing demand for Sharia-compliant products.

The renewed interest in physical branches reflects a blended strategy of combining the convenience of digital platforms with the relationship-driven nature of traditional banking.

Artificial intelligence (AI) platforms are emerging as a new frontier of digital disparity, with African users paying more to use global systems that process commands in the English language far more efficiently than local languages like Swahili.

The difference stems from how leading AI developers bill their services through tokens, as small text fragments that represent words or partial words used to process commands and generate responses within a model.

Global models, including those built by multinationals OpenAI and Google DeepMind, have been primarily trained on vast English-language datasets scrapped from the internet, academic publications, and books, giving the systems native efficiency in interpreting and generating English text.

When the same requests are made in Swahili, however, the models require between 30 and 50 percent more tokens to deliver the same output, according to open research data from American AI firm Hugging Face.

The difference translates into higher operating costs for developers, companies, as well as users who run AI tools or chatbots in African languages, since most commercial platforms charge per token processed.

In more practical terms, a Nairobi-based fintech firm building a Swahili-language virtual assistant could pay nearly half as much in API fees as a firm offering an English-only version of the same service.

This charging structure, described by African language researchers as a ‘tokenisation bias’, reflects an underlying gap in how global AI systems are trained and designed, rather than any deliberate pricing discrimination.

‘Language models learn statistical patterns from the data they are exposed to, and with English accounting for over 60 percent of the internet’s text content, most systems naturally optimise for it,’ asserts IT specialist David Waithaka.

‘African languages, which make up less than one percent of the world’s digitised text corpus, are therefore broken down into smaller sub-units by the model to match existing English-based patterns, increasing the number of tokens processed.’

That structural inefficiency, analysts argue, has direct commercial implications for the continent’s growing market, where language localisation is becoming central to new-age concepts such as digital government, e-commerce and customer support systems, among others.

African computational linguists have commenced research to correct the imbalance by building open-source language datasets and training models directly in local languages, as in the case of South Africa’s Masakhane and Lelapa AI, as well as AI4Afrika.

Masakhane has developed translation datasets for over 200 African languages, while Lelapa AI is training foundational models that natively handle local dialects and idioms without breaking them into inefficient token fragments.

Experts say these homegrown efforts are critical to ensuring that Africa’s digital transformation does not depend entirely on external systems that were not designed for its linguistic landscape.

‘We don’t have to translate who we are to be understood. AI shouldn’t charge extra for being African,’ observes AI trainer Nyandia Gachago.

Limited research funding and computing services, however, continue to constrain the progress of homegrown solutions, leaving the continent dependent on imported models whose performance and costs it cannot fully control.

If the imbalance persist, industry analysts warn, African businesses could be staring at a long-term structural disadvantage in adopting generative AI technologies, compared to regions where linguistic efficiency aligns with the global model training.

Kenya’s rapid digitisation of public services, including Swahili-language chatbots for citizen engagement, could also face cost implications unless local language models are developed to match global standards.

In May last year, tech giant Microsoft announced that it would support the development of an AI model in Swahili as part of its grand plan to invest up to $1 billion (Sh129.2 billion at current conversion rates) in Kenya’s digital ecosystem.

At the time, the firm said the initiative would be geared toward supporting Kenya’s unique cultural and linguistic needs in a development that was touted as the magic wand that would drive AI uptake among native communities.

Earlier in July 2023, Swahili had become the first African language to be onboarded to Google’s conversational generative AI chatbot known as Bard, alongside 40 other international languages that included Chinese, German, Spanish, Arabic, and Hindi.

Bard is Google’s experimental AI chat service whose function closely mirrors that of ChatGPT, with the only deviation being that Bard pulls its information from the web.

Power producer KenGen has declared a record dividend of Sh0.9 per share or a total of Sh5.93 billion after reporting a 54.2 net profit growth in the year ended June 2025.

The dividend will be paid on February 12, 2026, to shareholders who will be on the register as of November 27, 2025.

The new payout marks a 38.4 percent jump from the prior year’s Sh4.28 billion or Sh0.65 per share.

The combination of higher earnings and increased distribution to shareholders has driven the company’s share price rally over the past year to cross the Sh10 mark.

The company, which previously retained most of its earnings to finance its capital-intensive projects, is now distributing more than half of its net income to shareholders in a signal that it has adequate resources to fund its operations.

KenGen’s net profit in the review period rose to Sh10.4 billion from Sh6.7 billion a year earlier, with the Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed firm benefitting from lower costs.

Operating expenses shrunk by Sh4.1 billion to Sh35.1 billion, compensating for a decline in net sales to Sh46.4 billion from Sh48.2 billion.

The company attributed the lower costs to reduced depreciation and a fall in overhead expenses as it continues to implement efficiency measures.

The drop in sales was due to lower geothermal and steam revenues, the power producer said. The firm has diversified power generation sources, including hydro, thermal and wind.

KenGen also booked a foreign exchange gain of Sh1.45 billion, an improvement from a currency loss of Sh722 million the year before.

The shilling traded relatively better in the review period compared to the prior year, benefiting KenGen, which has multiple liabilities denominated in foreign currencies, including the US dollar, euro and Japanese yen.

‘The improvement was largely driven by the strengthening of the Kenya shilling against major currencies during the year compared to the previous period,’ said the company.

KenGen’s finance costs also declined to Sh2.2 billion from Sh2.8 billion, contributing to the profit growth.

The company says it plans to add more power generation capacity to the national grid in the coming years including through expansion of existing plants.

‘Our near-term pipeline of 252.82 MW (megawatts) continues to advance steadily, anchored by flagship projects such as the 63 MW Olkaria I Rehabilitation, the 42.5 MW Seven Forks Solar Project, and the Gogo Hydro Power Plant Upgrade (8.6MW),’ KenGen said.

‘These projects, alongside the Wellhead Leasing Geothermal Project (58.42MW), and Olkaria VII Geothermal Power Project (80.3 MW) in the medium term, will strengthen grid reliability, stimulate industrial growth, and advance Kenya’s transition to a clean and sustainable energy future.’

The National Treasury, with a 70 percent stake in KenGen, will collect the largest dividend of Sh4.1 billion in the upcoming payout.

Pilots working with Kenyan airlines will receive compensation from Britam General Insurance under a specialised cover aimed at protecting aviation professionals from income loss when they are grounded due to illness or injury.

The insurance, called Pilot Loss of Licence (LoL) cover, targets both professional and trainee pilots registered with the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) and will be activated when these professionals lose their license to fly due to illness or injury.

Pilots require both technical skill and strict medical clearance to fly. A sudden illness or accident can cost a pilot their licence to fly, cutting off their main source of income.

Now Britam has introduced the LoL policy to cushion such pilots who are declared medically unfit to fly and lose their right to operate aircraft -whether temporarily or permanently.

‘A pilot’s career is a significant investment and the loss of their licence, even temporarily, can have serious financial consequences,’ said James Mbithi, CEO at Britam General.

‘Our new Pilot Loss of Licence Cover is designed to provide peace of mind. It acts as a financial safety net, ensuring that an unforeseen illness or injury does not mean the end of a livelihood.’

The launch of the cover comes at a time Kenya’s aviation sector is witnessing expansion, with more pilots flying both domestic and international routes.

KCAA data shows that the number of people holding air transport pilot licences jumped 15.8 percent in five years to 1,663 in 2024, while those with commercial pilot licences rose 16.8 percent to 2,159.

The number of personnel with private pilot licences increased 21.3 percent to 2,097, and those with student pilot licences climbed 16.6 percent to 3,813 over the same period.

The temporary LoL cover provides monthly financial support when a licence is suspended due to illness or accident, paying 2 percent of insured sum per month for body injury or general illness and 0.5 percent for classified or psychological illness.

The maximum benefit period is 12 months, with a 90-day waiting period.

The permanent LoL, which caters for more serious illnesses or accidents, will entitle pilots to 100 percent of the insured sum for bodily injury or general illness and 25 percent for classified or psychological conditions, subject to a 180-day waiting period.

Britam said the total insured amount for the permanent LoL will be calculated at five times the pilot’s annual earnings to retirement age, ensuring substantial financial protection proportionate to their career earnings potential.

The policy is available to all pilots under 65 years registered with the KCAA and extends to injuries sustained outside work, including sports-related incidents.

The insurer said the cover comes with certain exclusions including loss of license due to criminal acts, negligence or incompetence at work or deliberate exposure to danger except when saving a life. Active duty with armed forces, participation in war or terrorism and undeclared pre-existing conditions will also be excluded.

The security guard patrolling the premises, the logistical personnel navigating Mombasa Road at dawn, or the technician monitoring live video at 2 am: these are the unsung heroes who keep different facilities running long after the lights go out.

Yet the rapid convergence of physical and digital threats has created vulnerabilities that demand equally evolved security approaches. So advanced is technology that when a banking system is hacked, the thief doesn’t always wear a hoodie or a face mask before physically hijacking a transit vehicle.

Sometimes it’s the vault door custodian whose login credentials were phished weeks earlier, turning a trusted sentinel into an unwitting accomplice.

In Kenya, this is no longer hypothetical, it is happening. And it highlights a critical blind spot: Kenya’s companies must treat cyber and physical security as one integrated system, as attackers already do.

The Central Bank of Kenya’s 2024 Financial Sector Stability Report shows cyber fraud losses continue to climb, driven by weak passwords, social engineering, SIM swaps, and phishing.

Meanwhile, the World Security Report 2025 finds that 41 percent of Kenyan companies surveyed cite fraud as their leading external threat. But here’s the twist: 64 percent say misinformation or external radicalisation now drives insider threats. A fake WhatsApp message can turn a trusted employee into an access point. That’s convergence in action.

Findings are based on insights from 2,352 security leaders in 31 countries, including 58 security chiefs from Kenya and 174 from Sub-Saharan Africa.

The World Security Report 2025 was commissioned by Allied Universal, the world’s leading provider of security and facility management services, and its international business G4S. The survey also reveals 78 percent of Kenyan companies have been targeted by misinformation campaigns. A false social media post spreads panic that shuts down a factory.

Some 79 percent of Kenyan firms plan to increase their security budgets, the highest rate in Sub-Saharan Africa. The challenge isn’t spending more, it is integrating better. Many organisations still run physical and cyber security as separate departments.

When attackers exploit the gap between code and concrete, companies pay twice: first in data loss, then in stolen assets. This continues to rise with over 2.5 billion cyber-threat events reported in the first quarter of 2025, a 201 percent surge from the previous quarter according to the Communications Authority of Kenya.

Integration doesn’t require sacrificing privacy, it’s about protecting it intentionally. The human element remains critical.

Kenya’s frontline security professionals now face demands beyond traditional duties, a reality reflected globally, where 81 percent of security chiefs agree there are greater demands on guards than there were five years ago.

Every phishing alert needs a human interpreter. Every data point must translate into an on-the-ground response. Guards, drivers, and control-room operators aren’t just watching doors anymore, they’re connecting dots across physical and digital worlds.

To make integration real, company boards must treat security not as a cost centre but as a strategic imperative.

Kenya isn’t alone. Across the region, Nigeria and South Africa show the same pattern, hacked logistics systems paired with coordinated smear campaigns. Those who integrate early recover faster and retain investor trust. A major physical security breach can wipe 32 percent of a company’s value, findings from the World security report reveal.

Kenyan businesses can keep treating physical and cyber security as separate checkboxes, or embrace a model that reflects how attackers actually operate.

A company that unifies its intelligence, trains its people, and acts on early signals gains fewer disruptions, safer teams, and stronger investor confidence.

Kenya must build bridges between the server room and the gate, before attackers exploit the gap between them.

A tax assessment generated outside the iTax system cannot be deemed a valid assessment under the law, the High Court has ruled.

Likewise, the court said an objection to a tax assessment must also be lodged through the same iTax system to be legally valid.

The court made the decision in a Sh1.13 billion dispute between the Commissioner of Domestic Taxes and Hanqing Zhao, an individual taxpayer dealing with general supplies.

According to the court, the iTax serves a critical statutory and administrative function as the prescribed electronic platform, ensuring that each objection is linked to a specific assessment, assigned a unique reference number, and bears an official time stamp indicating the precise date and time of lodgement.

‘These features provide the necessary transparency and certainty in the computation of timelines and tracking of objections under Section 51(11) of the Act,’ said the court.

In the matter, Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) investigated the affairs of the taxpayer between 2018 and 2023 and issued a notice of assessment totalling Sh1.136 billion.

Unsatisfied, the taxpayer lodged an objection by letter on September 29, 2023 sent to the KRA’s mail. The taxman then issued a demand notice for the full amount assessed on the basis that no objection had been formally filed by the taxpayer on iTax.

However, following discussions between the parties and authorisation by the KRA for the filing of a late objection, the taxpayer eventually lodged a formal objection on the iTax portal on November 30, 2023.

After the objection was lodged on iTax, the Commissioner of Domestic Taxes issued a decision on the objection, confirming the tax liability but reducing it to Sh1.129 billion.

The taxpayer was still not satisfied and challenged the decision before the Tax Appeals Tribunal. After hearing the dispute, the tribunal ruled in favour of the taxpayer saying the commissioner’s objection was issued outside the 60-day period prescribed under Section 51(11) of the Tax Procedures Act.

KRA appealed to the High Court.

The court noted that the law governing objections to tax assessments provides that the commissioner must take a decision within 60 days of receiving a valid notice of objection.

If no decision is made within this timeframe, the objection is deemed to have been allowed by operation of law.

The court noted that Hanqing first lodged his objection through a letter.

‘Accordingly, it is the respondent’s position that the timeline within which the commissioner was to issue its objection decision expired on 28th November 2023, and therefore the commissioner’s objection decision of 29th January 2024 was made beyond the statutory timelines, with the consequence that its objection [the taxpayer] was allowed by operation of the law,’ the court said.

The court ruled that the 60-day period began when the taxpayer formally submitted the objection on the iTax platform, rather than from the earlier date of submission by mail.

The court said that objections transmitted through other means, such as personal or departmental email, lack the necessary attributes.

‘It is incapable of generating an auditable trail and exposes the process to ambiguity, dispute, and potential abuse,’ said the court.

The court found that the objection decision was not made outside the statutory timelines, and the tribunal, therefore, erred in setting aside the demand.

However, the court ruled that the decision could not stand, as it would be both unjust and contrary to the Constitution to simply uphold the commissioner’s objection decision and trigger the enforcement of the entire tax demand, without allowing the taxpayer to ventilate and determine their substantive objections on their merits.

‘Accordingly, while I set aside the judgment of the Tax Appeals Tribunal delivered on 22nd November 2024, I decline to uphold the commissioner’s objection decision as final. Instead, I direct that the matter be remitted to the Tax Appeals Tribunal for a fresh hearing and determination on the merits of the taxpayer’s appeal, in accordance with the law and procedure,’ the court ruled.

The value of retail investors’ assets under management by Jubilee Holdings’ unit has crossed the Sh20 billion mark, pointing to sustained interest by individuals eyeing optimal returns from the investment option.

Jubilee Asset Management, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jubilee Holdings, said the figure represents over Sh3 billion rise in under two months, given that the figure stood at Sh17 billion early September this year.

The Jubilee Asset Management manages three retail investment funds that comprise the Kenya shillings-denominated Jubilee Money Market Fund, Jubilee Fixed Income Fund and the US dollar-denominated Jubilee Money Market Fund.

The milestone comes barely two years after the launch of the retail investment funds in December 2022, translating to an annualised growth rate of about 167 percent. Jubilee Asset Management is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jubilee Holdings.

The growth comes on the back of easing inflation and a growing shift by investors from traditional savings products to regulated collective investment schemes (CIS) that balance between security and yield.

‘This milestone is a testament to the steady rise in investor confidence and the growing appetite for professionally managed investment funds. It reflects a broader shift among Kenyans towards structured saving and investment solutions, driven by greater access, financial awareness, and improved digital experiences,’ said Dominic Kiarie, CEO at Jubilee Asset Management.

He added that the growth reflects Jubilee Asset Management’s strategy to simplify investing through digital access, transparent reporting, and prudent asset allocation that prioritises long-term value over short-term speculation.

Last year, the firm launched the JAM Hub digital portal that enables customers to manage their investment accounts online. This includes opening new individual accounts, topping up existing accounts, lodging withdrawal requests, or monitoring their investment account, among other services.

Jubilee Asset Management also manages institutional funds, where the figure stands at Sh191 billion. Previous disclosures in September last year had put the figure at Sh195 billion. Combined, the retail and institutional segments bring total assets under management to Sh211 billion.

Jubilee’s growth mirrors a broader surge in Kenya’s CIS market, where total assets under management nearly doubled over the past year.

Data from the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) shows that by June 2025, CIS assets had climbed to about Sh596.6 billion, up from Sh254.1 billion at the end of June last year.

Money Market Funds remain the dominant product, accounting for more than 60 per cent of total CIS assets as investors seek low-risk, high-liquidity options amid economic uncertainty.

The CMA has also accelerated approvals of new funds and sub-funds, expanding the range of products available to retail investors – including dollar-denominated and hybrid offerings.

Financial literacy initiatives and digital onboarding tools have further lowered barriers to entry, attracting first-time investors across Kenya’s expanding middle class.

Carbacid Investments has recorded an 18.8 percent rise in net profit for the year ended July 2025 allowing the company to declare a record dividend to shareholders.

The company posted a net income of Sh1 billion up from Sh843.2 million recorded a year earlier. The jump followed recovery of the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) and Dar-es-Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE), which saw its investments portfolio rise by Sh121.2 million compared to a Sh31.2 million shrinkage last year.

The company’s board has announced a Sh2 dividend per share-up from Sh1.70 per share in 2024-which will be a record payout for the listed company.

‘The Nairobi Securities Exchange and Dar-es-Salaam Stock Exchange maintained their recovery trends, positively influencing the Group’s investment portfolio. As a result, the Group recorded unrealised gains of Sh68 million on NSE-listed equities and Sh52 million on DSE-listed equities,’ the firm said in a statement.

‘The directors have proposed a final dividend of Sh2.00 per share (2024: Sh1.70 per share), amounting to a total of Sh509,703,970 (2024: Sh433,248,375).’

The NSE gained 53.8 percent in the 12 months to the end of July 2025, as measured by the NSE all share index. The rally has been attributed to local investors seeking entry into counters that had been undervalued during the bear run.

The carbon dioxide manufacturer, whose product is used by producers of alcohol and soft drinks, recorded a 1.6 percent growth in turnover to Sh2.1 billion owing to higher domestic sales and rising demand from new markets in the South African region.

Domestic sales rose 22.2 percent to Sh613.3 million while export earnings shrunk to Sh1.48 billion from Sh1.56 billion which was attributed to strengthening of the shilling against the dollar.

‘This modest growth was mainly driven by rising demand in non-traditional markets such as South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Malawi. However, the appreciation of the Kenyan Shilling against the US Dollar dampened growth when measured in local currency terms,’ said the company.

The company’s operating profit rose 11.3 percent to Sh1.35 billion signaling that it was enjoying wider gross margins. Management attributed the wider margins to improved operation efficiency especially in energy consumption.

Delivery to the South African markets however increased, dampening gains that it made from the operational efficiency.

‘Labour cost, fleet maintenance and other related costs increased due to additional distance covered to serve the customers in various markets,’ said the company.

The company’s outlook for the current financial year was dampened by an increase in royalty payments it has to make to the ministry of Mining and Blue Economy.

‘The cost of higher royalty payments, combined with persistent inflationary pressures on labour, energy, and fleet costs, is expected to put a strain on operating margins,’ said Carbacid in a statement.

‘Unless there is meaningful policy review or relief on royalties by the Ministry, these costs will pose a competitive disadvantage to Kenya’s exports of liquefied carbon dioxide,’ it added.

As businesses innovate to meet evolving customer needs, the demand for real-time data has never been greater. The unprecedented rise in systemic risks has exposed the limits of traditional resilience measures. Despite genuine efforts, many organisations still fall short of achieving true operational resilience.

To remain competitive, businesses must prioritise their ability to absorb and swiftly recover from disruptions through real-time business activity monitoring.

For years, banks have relied on robust d

These typically involve mapping systems, identifying points of failure, simulating disruptions, and introducing redundancies alongside failover and recovery mechanisms. While this provides a solid foundation, it falls short of addressing today’s complexity and unpredictability.

Black swan events, unpredictable, and high-impact, are increasingly common. Geopolitical cyberattacks, third-party outages, and cascading network failures can defy even the most rigorous testing.

Moreover, compliance costs are rising. Smaller businesses often face a trade-off between investing in innovation and allocating resources to risk management, an uneasy balance essential for commercial survival.

Testing also comes with inherent blind spots. Simulations are based on assumptions; you can only test for what you already know. Real-world incidents are further complicated by human factors such as miscommunication or burnout, which can exacerbate disruptions.

Relying solely on proactive testing therefore creates dangerous gaps in awareness-organisations may not detect unfolding issues until critical thresholds are breached, leading to prolonged outages, regulatory violations, or irreversible loss of customer trust.

Real-time visibility transforms how businesses respond to operational challenges. By providing instant insights, it enables teams to detect anomalies as they happen, assess their potential impact, and act before problems escalate.

True operational resilience requires a mindset shift; from trying to prevent every possible failure to accepting that failure is inevitable, and instead focusing on minimising impact through rapid detection, real-time insight, and agile response. In essence, you cannot plan for everything, but you can be ready for anything.

Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) provides detailed, end-to-end visibility of transactions across multiple internal systems and channels. It tracks the entire lifecycle of a transaction-from initiation to completion-allowing institutions to swiftly detect, investigate, and resolve issues before they affect customers.

With a centralised view, teams can immediately identify bottlenecks or abnormal transaction behaviour. For instance, an unusual surge in payment volumes from a single channel at 3 am during the festive season could signal potential fraud or system stress.

BAM also helps monitor service level agreements (SLAs) and assess Value at Risk (VaR). As transactions approach thresholds that could breach contractual obligations or expose financial assets, automated alerts can be triggered to pre-emptively address the issue-preserving compliance and customer confidence.

Beyond resilience, BAM can reveal hidden opportunities and inefficiencies. It can identify revenue leakages-such as payments failing due to timeouts, misapplied pricing or discounts, loans abandoned mid-process, reconciliation gaps, or underbilled services. It can even detect patterns like agents splitting payments to earn extra commissions.

In today’s hyper-connected world, customers are highly sensitive to service disruptions, delays, or downtimes. A single viral social media post can erode loyalty and damage a brand built over decades. Businesses with real-time resilience frameworks are better positioned not only to withstand disruptions but to address them proactively-often before customers notice.

Operationally efficient organisations also optimise resources by streamlining workflows and reducing response times during incidents.

This fosters a culture of continuous improvement, empowering teams to embrace agility and anticipate future risks rather than merely reacting to them.

Without real-time visibility, institutions risk prolonged service interruptions, financial losses, and severe reputational damage. In today’s competitive landscape, even brief downtimes can undermine customer trust and market position.

To thrive in such an environment, organisations must fundamentally rethink their operational strategies-making real-time business monitoring not just a technology investment, but a strategic imperative.

The sharp pop of a knuckle crack can be oddly satisfying. Every now and then, I find myself cracking the knuckles of my fingers for no apparent reason.

For some people, it is a way to focus, while for others, it is simply a nervous reflex that feels right. Yet it is also one of those habits that quickly draws stares and warnings from friends or family who say, “Your joints will be damaged in the long run. Stop doing that.”

Curious to find out how common the habit is, I ran a short poll on Instagram. Nearly half of the respondents (45 percent) said they have never counted how many times they crack their knuckles, suggesting it happens without much thought.

About 32 percent said they do it fewer than five times a day, while 13 percent admitted to doing it countless times. But what really happens when we crack our knuckles, and could it have any lasting effects?

Dr Eva Langat, an orthopaedic and trauma surgeon at the Nairobi Spine and Orthopaedic Centre, says cracking your knuckles is not as harmful as many believe.

“When you crack your knuckles, you are stretching or increasing the space within your joint,” she explains.

Each joint contains a lubricating substance known as synovial fluid. When you stretch or expand the space inside a joint, the pressure within that joint drops. The fluid contains dissolved gases which, under reduced pressure, separate and form bubbles.

“The cracking sound comes from the gas separating into bubbles and then bursting,” says Dr Langat.

Does it cause arthritis?

Cracking your knuckles does not increase the risk of arthritis. Dr Langat clarifies that arthritis results from cartilage damage, which can occur due to trauma, infection, autoimmune diseases, where the body attacks its own joints, or natural wear and tear with age.

However, moderation is important. “If you bend your fingers slightly and apply a bit of force, that has not been shown to cause any joint damage,” she says.

“But if you twist or pull your fingers violently into abnormal positions, you risk dislocation or injury to the ligaments and tendons, because the joint is being forced beyond its normal range.”

When is cracking risky?

For people who already have arthritis in their finger joints, cracking knuckles can worsen symptoms.

“With arthritis, the cartilage lining the joint surfaces becomes rough. Instead of smooth gliding, there is grinding and friction. Any motion that adds strain to the joint will increase discomfort and pain,” says Dr Langat.

She warns that you should stop cracking your knuckles if you experience pain during or after doing so, or if your finger fails to return to its normal position. “That could mean you have dislocated or partially dislocated the joint,” she adds.

Myths and misconceptions

Dr Langat emphasises that there is no proven benefit to cracking your knuckles. “Those who do it have no advantage over those who do not,” she says.

She cites the case of Dr Donald Unger, a researcher who cracked the knuckles of his left hand at least twice a day for 60 years but never cracked those on his right hand.

“After many years, X-rays showed no difference between the two hands in terms of arthritis, bone quality, or grip strength.”

The same applies to cracking other joints such as toes, the jaw, or the spine. However, spinal adjustments should be left to professionals.

“Within the spine, we have similar joints, but also other delicate structures such as discs and nerves. Applying pressure incorrectly can injure these areas and cause serious complications,” she cautions.

Why do people do it?

According to Dr Langat, people who frequently crack their knuckles tend to do so out of habit or as a response to stress, anxiety, or nervousness. Some may even use it as a coping mechanism for obsessive-compulsive tendencies.

“There is no specific demographic of people who are more likely to. Most develop the habit when they are young and continue it into adulthood,” she says.