Category: Business Daily

The government plans to double the maximum compensation to policyholders of collapsed insurance companies to Sh500,000 per claim in a move to shield customers from losses.

The National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) for 2025-28, which has been prepared by key State players in the financial sector, including the Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) and Central Bank of Kenya, says raising the ceiling from the current Sh250,000 will help promote stability.

Employees of the Kenya Industrial Property Industry (Kipi) have been barred from registering or revoking trademarks, patents, and industrial designs without the express approval of the agency’s board of directors.

The Ministry of Investments, Trade, and Industry said it had been notified that staff of Kipi are processing and registering trademarks, patents, and industrial designs without involving the board or its technical committee.

‘Every artist was first an amateur.’ – Ralph Waldo Emerson

We love to celebrate creativity when it shines on a stage or hangs in a gallery, but rarely do we speak of the nights when it had to pay the rent.

A fresh court battle has erupted between artistes, the Kenya Copyright Board (Kecobo), and the Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK), over alleged mismanagement of funds collected from music and art consumers in the form of royalties.

Central to the ongoing dispute initiated by musicians Justus Ngemu and Saul Esikuri is the alleged loss of Sh56 million at MCSK. This amount had allegedly been received as royalties for artistes and musicians.

The windfall returns of 2024 from Treasury bills, government bonds, and money market funds appears to have ended. With yields drifting lower, investors are being forced to rethink how they position their portfolios.

Naomi Atera, a corporate finance analyst at Rock Advisors, says this means leaning into riskier asset classes, particularly equities listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange.

Make Money, a podcast series, hosted by Kepha Muiruri, from Business Daily Africa unravels ways to be financially savvy. Get practical tips and advice on how to increase your income, build wealth, and achieve financial freedom in Kenya. Whether you’re just starting out or a seasoned investor, we’ve got something for everyone.

The value of bonds traded at the Nairobi securities Exchange (NSE) grew 73.5 percent to Sh2.03 trillion in the nine months to September, highlighting increased participation in the segment by retail investors.

This marks the first time that the turnover in bonds has touched the Sh2 trillion mark in a calendar year, with the market now surpassing the 2024 full year trades total of Sh1.54 trillion, which was a record annual total for the segment.

Rwanda’s national carrier, RwandAir, has launched a new Zanzibar-Mombasa route, hoping to tap the coastal tourism boom to grow its fortunes.

The airline will operate the new route four times weekly, linking its Kigali hub with two of East Africa’s most sought-after leisure destinations. The flights will be served by a Boeing 737 aircraft, marking RwandAir’s return to Mombasa after a six-year pause.

The expansion is part of RwandAir’s strategy to establish Kigali as a competitive regional hub that rivals Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, and Addis Ababa in connecting East Africa to global travel and trade corridors. ‘Returning to Mombasa and introducing Zanzibar is another step forward in our ambitious growth journey,’ said Yvonne Makolo, RwandAir’s CEO.

She added that the route will expand opportunities for both leisure travellers and regional commerce.

Zanzibar and Mombasa are among the region’s most popular coastal destinations, which draw in international visitors annually. Zanzibar, in particular, has seen a tourism recovery that has attracted investors in high-end hospitality, luxury villas, and beach resorts that cater for European, Middle East, and intra-African travellers.

Additionally, Mombasa has historically been Kenya’s gateway to the Indian Ocean as a tourist hotspot and a logistics hub through the port of Mombasa. However, it has been forced to reinvent itself amid rising competition from Zanzibar’s more aggressively marketed resort economy.

The airline’s new route will face competition from Kenya Airways (KQ) and Jambojet, which already have a strong presence on the coastal routes.

KQ currently flies daily between Nairobi and Zanzibar, with frequencies reaching 13 flights per week, including some days that have double services. Jambojet, KQ’s low-cost subsidiary, launched the Mombasa-Zanzibar route in July 2024. It began with four flights per week and has since expanded to as many as six per week, with the airline targeting daily flights during peak holiday seasons.

Other airlines include Precision Air and Air Tanzania, which have dominated the local Tanzania routes, while Ethiopian Airlines has also used Addis Ababa as a connecting hub for Zanzibar-bound travellers.

The coastal leisure market is proving resilient even amid global economic headwinds, with Zanzibar recording a steady rise in arrivals from Europe and the Gulf states. Airlines are banking on the sustained demand for short-haul regional tourism that has been fuelled by a rising African middle class and intra-African travel spurred by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

Three-quarters of companies registered for corporate income tax (CIT) did not pay taxes on earnings in the year to June, pointing to deepening losses and tax avoidance.

Fresh data from the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) shows that 156,232 out of 618,201 firms on the corporate tax register paid up their fair share to the taxman, reflecting a compliance rate of 25.2 percent.

MPs have approved a sessional paper on the privatisation of Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC), where the government will retain a 35 percent ownership in the company.

This, even as opposition MPs vowed to move to the High Court to block the privatisation, claiming an ambush by the Executive.

A push for alternative systems to dollar-based payments has intensified with regional platforms prepping to drive continental trade, amid concerns over time and cost involved in trading using the US currencies

Last week, a payment system backed by the African Export-Import (Afrexim) Bank was rolled out in Nairobi, targeting to connect Kenyan traders with their counterparts across borders, through the Africa Trade Gateway (ATG).