Category: Business Daily

Access Bank Kenya is set to resolve a Sh2.11 billion capital shortfall through its merger with National Bank of Kenya (NBK) as their parent firm consolidates its Kenyan operations amid rising regulatory requirements.

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) said Wednesday that it had approved the transfer of all assets and liabilities of Access Bank Kenya to NBK, following approval on August 17 under the Banking Act and clearance by the Treasury on September 21.

Nigeria’s Access Bank Plc acquired NBK from KCB Group in May 2025. The buyout of NBK was Access’ second acquisition in Kenya, coming after the 2020 deal in which it bought Transnational Bank and rebranded it to Access Bank Kenya.

‘The CBK announces the transfer of all assets and liabilities of Access Bank Kenya to NBK…The transfer shall take effect upon completion of the transaction in accordance with the terms of the Business and Assets Transfer Agreement between the parties,’ said CBK.

The completion of the transfer in line with the business and assets transfer agreement between the pair will come as a relief for Access Bank Kenya, which had core capital of Sh892 million as at end of June 2026 against the required minimum of Sh3 billion.

NBK held core capital of Sh12.01 billion over this period, making it fully compliant with the Business Laws (Amendment) Act 2024 that raised the minimum core capital from Sh1 billion, triggering a wave of fundraising for extra capital among 10 banks.

However, Access Bank Kenya, had stated in June that it was counting on the merger with NBK to hit compliance rather than turn to its parent company for additional funding.

‘Access Bank (Kenya) Pic’s core capital currently stands at Sh892 million, which is below the regulatory minimum of Sh3 billion. The proposed merger with NBK is expected to fully close this shortfall, strengthen the combined entity’s core capital and ensure regulatory compliance,’ Access Bank Kenya said in August in a commentary on its half-year 2026 financial results.

The transfer also consolidates Access Bank’s Kenyan operations under NBK, potentially giving the group a larger balance sheet.

The transaction comes as Kenyan banks face progressively higher capital requirements following changes to the Banking Act.

Under the Business Laws (Amendment) Act 2024, the minimum core capital requirement was raised from Sh1 billion to Sh3 billion by December 2025. The law initially provided for further increases to Sh5 billion by the end of 2026, Sh6 billion in 2027, Sh8 billion in 2028 and Sh10 billion by 2029.

The higher requirements triggered a wave of capital raising, particularly among smaller lenders seeking to remain compliant.

The government has since adjusted the implementation of the Sh10 billion requirement. In June, Treasury CS John Mbadi scrapped the staggered compliance timeline, extending the deadline to December 2032 and setting a one-off deadline for banks to meet the threshold.

Armed with a noise-measuring app, Nairobi-based teacher Alice Wawira was determined to prove that a bus she boarded on August 31 was playing music at volumes at least 21 units louder than acceptable.

She started the app and let the technology do the analysis. The results shocked her. The bus was playing music at an average of 106 decibels (dB), well above the 85-decibel threshold for safe volume levels. It detected a maximum of 114 decibels and a minimum of 94.9.

“It is the most hazardous noise level I have ever encountered,” Ms Wawira told BDLife.

She raised the matter with the conductor, but nothing came of it. She then took the drastic step of alighting midway through her journey. She had been heading to Juja from Nairobi and had to leave the bus at Githurai.

Experts, including the United States’ National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), advise that at 106 decibels, the level Ms Wawira detected, one should not be exposed for more than three minutes and 48 seconds at a time.

“This is a serious health issue for the people immediately affected-the conductor, the driver and their families,” Ms Wawira said. “After some years, these people will need hearing aids.”

Hearing loss

Ear, nose and throat surgeon, Dr Kennedy Kipkoech, who works with Equity Afya, advises Kenyans to use Wawira’s approach to check whether they are in environments detrimental to their ears.

“If you want to really understand your exposure, just download those apps,” said Dr Kipkoech. “We call them sound level meters. They average the total noise you are exposed to in a particular place.”

Explaining how prolonged exposure to loud volumes can damage the ears, he notes that hair cells inside the ear can snap and fail to recover.

“Sound energy is transmitted into electrical energy for the brain to interpret,” he says, adding that this transformation happens in the inner ear, about four centimetres from the visible outer ear, with the hair cells playing a key role.

These hairs can bend and recover after a while, but if noise is too loud for too long, they die.

“There are times when the damage is irreversable. If the sound is too loud for too long, it causes serious stress until the hair cell dies. The more persistently you expose yourself, the more cells die. Unlike hair cells in birds or amphibians, human hair cells, once dead, stay dead,” he says.

Noting that normal human speech ranges from 60 to 70 dB, Dr Kipkoech says people should not dismiss loud music in open spaces or through earphones as a mere nuisance.

“The higher the decibel level, the higher the risk,” he says. “There is also a time factor-how long you are exposed. Both play a critical role in the risk of hearing loss.”

In occupational health, 85 decibels over an eight-hour period is commonly used as the threshold at which repeated exposure becomes hazardous. NIOSH states that workplace noise becomes hazardous with repeated exposure at or above 85 dB, and that noise-induced hearing loss is preventable. At higher volumes, safe exposure time drops sharply.

“At 85 dB, you should not be exposed for more than eight hours continuously. At 90 dB, the allowable exposure drops to four hours. At 95 dB, you must halve that to two hours,” explained Dr Kipkoech.

This is why personal listening devices require special caution, he says. Earbuds and in-ear headphones deliver sound directly into the ear canal, encouraging long listening sessions without anyone noticing the volume.

“Long ago, we had what I call communal hearing,” he says. “There’s a TV, we’re all listening, and a parent says, ‘Turn that down.’ That was a form of self-regulation. Now everyone is on their earphones, in the streets, and we don’t know how loud it is. Sometimes, sitting next to someone in a matatu, you can hear their music more than they can.”

The World Health Organization advises keeping personal-device volume low, using well-fitting noise-cancelling headphones, limiting time in noisy environments, taking listening breaks and monitoring sound levels. It warns that loud sound exposure can cause temporary hearing loss or tinnitus, while regular or prolonged exposure can permanently damage sensory cells.

For those working in noisy settings-factories, workshops, bus termini or venues with heavy machinery-Dr Kipkoech says prevention shouldn’t rely on willpower alone. Employers and regulators can reduce risk through engineering controls, shorter exposure periods, rest breaks, monitoring and protective gear such as earplugs or earmuffs.

He also cautions against assuming the ear will always recover after a loud event. Muffled hearing or ringing after a concert may fade, but that doesn’t mean no harm was done.

“You might be lucky, but you don’t know the resilience of your inner hair cells. Chronic exposure will wear them out, even if you’re banking on recovery.”

A single extremely loud event-above 120 dB, up to 160 dB, such as in minefields or war zones-can rupture the eardrum, dislocate the tiny middle-ear bones, or damage inner hair cells directly.

Warning signs include needing people to repeat themselves, missing words on the phone, struggling in noisy conversations, and hearing persistent ringing or buzzing. Dr Kipkoech recommends at least one hearing check-up a year, and more frequent reviews for those regularly exposed to high noise.

Hearing aids can help those with hearing loss but are not cosmetic devices, he stresses. “This is something you can prevent. But if you don’t, noise-induced hearing loss is permanent.”

An importer and a clearing agent face prosecution after the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) uncovered Sh56 million in under-declared tax on a consignment of mobile phones imported through the Eldoret International Airport.

KRA investigators found 55,607 basic smartphones in a shipment whose owners had only declared 3,000 gadget for taxation in customs documents. The investigators also discovered 309 undeclared high-end phones, highlighting the difficulty of relying on broad customs benchmarks to assess consolidated cargo, particularly where large quantities of high-value electronics are packed into mixed shipments.

‘All the taxes due to be demanded,’ KRA officers from Investigations and Enforcement, Business Intelligence and Customs and Border Control units have recommended in a confidential report seen by the Business Daily after determining that the consignment involved both under-declaration and non-declaration of dutiable goods.

‘Prosecute or compound upon request, both the importer and the clearing agent,’ the KRA team adds in the report, citing Section 219 of the East African Community Customs Management Act.

Under-declaration and non-declaration offences under Section 203(a), (b) and (e) of EACCMA, 2004, attract a maximum penalty of USD 20,000 (about Sh2.59 million) or 50 percent of the dutiable value of the goods involved, whichever is higher, or imprisonment of up to three years.

The law also empowers KRA to compound the offences, which means settling the case administratively out of court.

The phones were part of a much wider consolidated cargo shipment containing electronics and other consumer goods.

The manifest included 800 refurbished laptops, 1,300 MacBooks, 63 tablets, 950 mobile phone screens, 1,510 Meeto phone screens, 10 Starlink units, printers, televisions, routers, network equipment and other goods.

There were also six drones, 380 pairs of ear pods, gaming equipment and assorted cosmetics, clothing and shoes.

The KRA officers have also recommended detention of the drones found in the wider shipment pending production of proof of authority from the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority.

‘KRA is actively engaged in unearthing tax evasion schemes in order to boost tax revenue compliance as well as adherence to tax laws and procedures, hence ensuring fair trade is maintained within the market,’ Commissioner for Investigations and Enforcement, Mohamed M’maka, wrote in a press statement on Wednesday.

The case comes weeks after President William Ruto directed the tax authority to reduce the minimum customs benchmark for containerised consolidated cargo to Sh2 million, reversing an August increase that had pushed the benchmark for a 40-foot container to Sh3.2 million.

The higher benchmark had triggered protests from small traders, with the President’s September 2 directive restoring the charge to below the Sh2.5 million level that had applied for about six years.

An insider at KRA told Business Daily that the reversal would put pressure on the authority’s revenue projections.

‘The directive caught us off-guard, and there will be a lot of reviews to correct the mess from the development. The new rates had already been factored into collection projections, and placing the rates back to levels of more than six years ago will certainly cause setbacks,’ the source said.

‘Customs is a key mover for our overall numbers, and any variations on such rates reflect on the bigger picture,’ the source added.

The Eldoret case, however, involves a separate issue from the general customs benchmark, namely the accuracy of declarations made for individual shipments.

The investigation began on September 11 and 12 after KRA received intelligence that a regional airline cargo flight had arrived at Eldoret International Airport carrying suspected undeclared mobile phones and other high-end electronic goods. That triggered a physical verification of the consolidated cargo.

The probe found that the consignment weighed 49,000 kilogrammes and had been cleared through five customs entries, on which importers had paid Sh24.12 million in taxes.

At the prevailing airport benchmark of Sh440 per kilogramme, the report states, the shipment would have generated an expected Sh21.56 million tax. That meant the taxes paid appeared higher than the benchmark.

Physical inspection, however, revealed a substantial discrepancy in the quantity and type of phones contained in one of the entries.

The entry had declared 3,000 mobile phones valued at $10 (about Sh1,295) each, with Sh2.52 million paid in taxes. Investigators instead found 55,607 ordinary smartphones, resulting in an under-declaration of 52,607 units.

KRA calculated total taxes payable on the smartphones at Sh49.92 million against Sh2.52 million already paid on the declared phones, yielding an additional tax liability of Sh47.39 million, according to the investigation report.

There are also 309 undeclared premium phones, including 38 Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra units, 24 Galaxy Z Fold 8s, 24 iPhone 17 Pro Max units and 19 Galaxy S25s, among other models, raising the tax bill to Sh56 million.

The assessment includes import duty, excise duty, value-added tax, the Import Declaration Fee and Railway Development Levy.

For the ordinary smartphones, KRA used an estimated free-on-board value of $10 per unit, while the 309 high-end phones were provisionally valued at $150 each.

The authority said the assessment for the premium devices could change following a formal valuation.

‘The additional taxes applicable to the high-end mobile phones are provisional estimates, pending valuation guidance from the Customs Valuation and Tariff Unit,’ the report says.

In July 2026, private-sector credit growth reached 10.6 percent the highest since February 2024. Total private-sector credit rose to Sh4.15 trillion. This growth is partly attributable to 10 consecutive Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) rate cuts, which reduced the benchmark rate from 13 percent to 8.75 percent.

As rates fell, average commercial lending rates declined from 17.2 percent in 2024 to about 14.3 percent in July 2026, while inflation and exchange-rate stability improved. However, there is serious work to do to make the credit market in Kenya more effective.

First, non-performing loans (NPLs) remain high at about 15.5 percent. The portfolios with disproportionately high NPLs in 2026 include agriculture, trade, manufacturing and traditional consumer lending. One category that is doing well in Kenya is digital consumer lending products, which have lower NPL rates.

Second, financial health among individuals and small businesses is worsening. FSD Kenya reports that the share of adults able to manage daily needs, absorb a financial shock and invest in their future fell from about 36 percent in 2016 to 18.3 percent in 2026.

Credit reference bureau (CRB) data shows that loans to men were nearly twice those o women in the period between 2019 to 2026, even when women recorded lower default probabilities.

Additionally, only 3.5 percent of lending was advanced to agriculture, despite agriculture contributing about 23 percent of Kenya’s GDP.

The same structural gap is visible in MSME lending. While there is private sector credit growth, MSME loan accounts is declining. As at end of July 2026 , only 6 percent of bank loan accounts were to MSMEs, translating to 4 percent of Kenya’s 3.8 million operating businesses.

This is the real reason Kenya’s private sector credit-to-GDP ratio remains about one-third of GDP, compared with in other markets; it is 70 percent in Mauritius and 90 percent in South Africa.

Can these structural misalignments be addressed through better information and incentives? In 2026, CBK rolled out a new Credit Risk Pricing Framework. We can observe that lower interest rates can stimulate credit. The next phase of development will depend on both the price of money and the quality and coverage of information used to allocate it. At the heart of this challenge is trust.

In credit, a lender advances money today in exchange for a promise of repayment tomorrow. Where this information is incomplete, commercial banks in Kenya shy away from lending. What happens there after is that informal lenders take over. These informal lenders compensate the lack of information by charging higher rates and by demanding more collateral.

Kenya’s opportunity is to convert more economic activity into trusted, verifiable information. The Open Finance framework, which has been in the works from mid-2025 and targeting full compliance by January 2027, will allow customers to authorise lenders to access verified financial information held by different institutions.

Trust can also be strengthened through technology. The growth of digital credit providers (DCPs) demonstrates what becomes possible when large volumes of alternative data are analysed in real time.

This is the foundation of a more connected credit market. When information is shared with consent, verified and used consistently, uncertainty falls. When uncertainty falls, the cost of assessing risk falls.

This creates room for better pricing, more appropriate products and greater access to credit. Kenya’s next credit-market opportunity is to create a trusted information ecosystem in which more economic activity becomes visible, verifiable and financeable.

The National Financial Inclusion Strategy 2025-2028 and the new Consumer Protection Framework, developed across seven regulators, provide a basis for wider information sharing. Agriculture lending will be a big beneficiary. Better information sharing can reveal the links between farmers, processors, traders and buyers within the same value chain.

A farmer’s repayment history, production records, sales, mobile-money flows and relationships with processors will be able to provide a fuller picture of creditworthiness than collateral alone.

With harmonised reporting rules, lenders can also develop products that reflect agricultural cash flows rather than forcing farmers into products designed for monthly salaries. This can address some of the prudential and product challenges that currently affect agricultural lending.

DCPs have rapidly expanded access, with more than 8.37 million loans worth over KSh150 billion disbursed. Their use of algorithms and data-driven credit assessment shows that credit decisions can increasingly be based on observed behaviour rather than assumptions about entire categories of borrowers.

The next step is to build trust across the financial ecosystem. Trust should become a currency that allows institutions to share information, technology, risk and balance-sheet capacity.

A lender with capital but limited technology can use a technology platform operated by another institution. A business with receivables can use verified transaction data to secure financing. A risk-sharing arrangement can allow several institutions to participate in a transaction while relying on common information.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in July revealed that foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into Kenya hit Sh413 billion in 2025, more than doubling figures recorded three years ago.

According to the report, the rise is partly attributed to both external factors, such as investors seeking new frontiers amid growing geopolitical tensions in other economies, as well as internal factors, such as wide-ranging reforms Kenya has instituted in its capital and money markets.

While the growth has been commendable, Kenya still lags countries like Egypt and South Africa, and the emergence of other economic powerhouses including Ethiopia and Rwanda has raised the competitive stakes.

This has prompted the exploration of other avenues to channel new investment into the country, and one of these emerging options for Kenya is family offices, favoured by high net worth individuals (HNWI) to professionalise the management of their estates.

Family offices are private wealth management advisory firms that serve ultra-HNWIs.

Family offices offer a wider range of financial services than most wealth management shops. For example, in addition to investment planning and management, many family offices manage their clients’ budgets, insurance, charitable giving, wealth transfer planning, tax services, and more.

The private family offices have grown in popularity among HNWIs looking to diversify their investment income, formalise the running of their family businesses, and manage and safeguard their financial legacies.

A report by UBS Global Wealth Management released in June this year, looking at 307 family offices with an average net worth of $2.7 billion, found that family offices continue to diversify across assets, currencies and regions.

Currently, North American assets and developed markets remain the backbone of most portfolios, with UBS indicating just a fraction (1 percent) of regional asset allocation by HNWIs is directed at Africa. This presents an opportunity for Kenya to position itself as a preferred destination for wealthy families to set up shop.

In the first place, the traditional perception of family offices serving as avenues to protect wealthy oligarchs who park assets in offshore accounts and low-tax jurisdictions is changing.

Family offices today are becoming more professional and diversified in their portfolios as more and younger individuals enter the HNWI bracket.

The institutions today are characterised by higher levels of external expertise as opposed to close relatives and a family lawyer making all the decisions. In addition, increased connectedness in the global economy facilitated by technology has presented new avenues and asset classes available to portfolio managers.

This is where Kenya comes into the picture. Kenya’s economy is much more diversified and connected to the global economy. Recent reforms in corporate governance, legal practice, investor protection fiscal policy also make Nairobi an ideal hub for setting up family offices.

Gleaning insights from protracted legal wrangles over the estates of deceased patriarchs, more business leaders today are actively developing and reviewing their succession plans to future-proof their legacies.

Family disputes, including divorce, lack of succession planning, or the sidelining of younger heirs from key decisions have been identified as some of the leading threats facing these institutions. Private family offices serve to professionally navigate the challenges outlined above, and for many HNWIs, they serve a crucial function in safeguarding their investment priorities despite economic headwinds.

‘Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep you balanced you must keep moving,’ wrote Albert Einstein in a letter to his son Eduard.

In a world where everything keeps moving faster and faster, is the greatest management risk not falling while you are moving forward? Is the real danger standing still, because you are afraid of losing your balance? Do leading edge companies often remain stable, not by resisting change, but by continuously adapting to it?

We often treat stability as the goal. Managers are forever creating processes, controls, always trying to reduce uncertainty, making things a touch more predictable and comfortable.

Yes, these things are important, but taken too far, they can create the very instability managers are trying to prevent. Like a bicycle that is just propped up against a wall, it can risk falling over. Just like a company that stops moving, eventually it loses its balance.

Constancy not required

Paradox is that stability can create instability. We tend to believe that by protecting staff from change we are creating security. But in practice, excessive stability can reduce an organisation’s ability to respond when change becomes unavoidable.

Down through the centuries, and in today’s AI world [and who knows what comes next], only constant is change. Markets evolve, technology changes and customer expectations shift. The writing is on the wall for those who are doing things ‘the way we have always done them’.

Counter-intuitive solution is that small, controlled changes today, can prepare a company for larger inevitable unpredicted changes of tomorrow.

On the bicycle ride

Don’t wait for perfect clarity. Gathering more data, having more meetings and develop increasingly detailed plans before taking action may not be the answer to try and get rid of that nagging uncertainty. Sometimes the fastest way to gain clarity is to just move. A small experiment, pilot project or customer conversation can reveal more than another month of analysis.

Act of movement creates information. Best to replace the various forms of prediction with experimentation.

Wobble is inevitable

A little wobble is healthy. A bicycle in motion only stays upright through constant adjustment. Your organisation works pretty much the same way. A department that never experiences disagreement, failed experiments, or uncomfortable questions may appear healthy, but it could also be avoiding learning.

Bicycle riding managers should create a space where people can challenge assumptions and test ideas, without turning every mistake into a crisis. No, the aim is not to eliminate the wobble. It is to develop the ability to recover from it quickly.

Best not to confuse activity with real progress. ‘Keep moving’ does not mean just keeping everyone busy.

Don’t confuse motion with momentum. Endless meetings, emails, dashboards and initiatives can create the appearance of progress, while in reality producing little value. Real question to ask is — What are we moving toward? A sharp leader has to distinguish between activity that consumes energy, and movement that creates meaningful progress.

Strange thing is that less top down control may create more bottom up capability. When a child learns to ride, no worried parent can maintain the bicycle’s balance for them. They have to develop their own ability to adjust.

An anxious manager, who makes every decision may keep things under control in the short-term, but the team becomes dependent on the lieutenant. Delegation is not simply about reducing a manager’s workload. It is about building an organisation capable of balancing itself.

Long before Angela Kariuki boarded a flight to Greece, she had seen the pictures, pinned them to her vision board, and imagined posing against Santorini’s blue-and-white backdrop. What she didn’t imagine, however, was arriving without her luggage.

‘My partner and I left for Greece on the 23rd of August,’ says the 41-year-old mother of two.

‘Normally, I never check in all my bags because I once went on a trip to Europe where the luggage was left behind and we never got it back until after the trip was over, but somehow, my partner convinced me to check everything in for this trip. So when we landed, we had no bags.’

The mishap turned their arrival into a scramble. Angela temporarily lost her cool. The taxi that was meant to pick them up left because filling out the paperwork needed to recover their luggage took too long. And then when they finally went out to buy some essentials, they discovered that stores in Athens close early on Sundays.

This was not the Greek welcome Angela had envisioned, but having a partner who stayed calm through the crisis and a travel agent who quickly stepped in to make alternative arrangements helped get the holiday back on track.

Over the next 10 days, they would explore three destinations: Athens, Santorini and Mykonos, starting with the Greek capital.

‘We stayed at the Grand Hyatt, which is essentially at the centre of the city,’ she says. ‘My partner chose it largely because it has incredible views. From the rooftop, you can see all of Athens around you.’

A glimpse of the Acropolis

The view also gave them their first glimpse of the Acropolis, which was the first place they visited during their three-day stay in Athens.

There, they walked through the monumental gates that separated mortal men from the immortals (the Propylae), learnt about the ancient Greek gods, and toured ancient temples, including one dedicated to Nike.

‘I like learning about the history of any country I visit. It opens up your eyes and makes you see things differently so that by the time you’re back home, you’re moving differently, including how you do business,’ says the founder of Angie’s Closet, a boutique specialising in women’s work-wear.

Absorbing city’s rhythm

‘The funny thing is, I hated History as a subject in school. I never performed well in it, but now, when I go to these places, it’s so exciting to see and learn. I even ended up buying five books about their history.’

They walked the streets to absorb the city’s rhythm, but also used the hop-on hop-off buses to get a rough idea of the place and mark spots they could revisit if the chance to return ever came up.

These buses, Angela says, have three main routes.

The Red Line takes you around central Athens, where the couple caught sight of Parliament and the changing of the guard; the Purple Line runs along the beach and Riviera, offering views of posh homes and recreational facilities along the coastline; while the Green Line takes you through Piraeus, the main port city, where they saw cruise ships and yachts.

‘There’s nothing quite like catching sunsets in a foreign land,’ Angela reminisces. ‘And with our hotel being at the top of a hill, we had the sun setting to one side, the Acropolis to the other side, and the city spread out below us. It was breathtaking.’

Santorini’s charm

From Athens, they flew to Santorini, the island that had been on Angela’s vision board since 2020.

‘There is the beautiful Santorini we see in photos, with whitewashed buildings and blue domes, but there is also the side we saw while driving from the airport to Oia, the town where we stayed,’ she says. ‘Santorini is an arid land, with little to no trees. Born from a volcanic eruption, the ground there is made of volcanic ash and pumice. They also don’t receive a lot of rain, so the plants that do well there are mostly grapes, eggplants, and cherry tomatoes.’

But while the dry landscape along the route blindsided her, their destination matched the postcard version that had appealed to Angela in the first place. The buildings, she discovered, were actually caves carved into the side of the cliffs. The blue and white colour scheme was also intentional.

‘White reflects the scorching sunlight and helps keep the interiors cooler, but also the limewash they use is not only affordable, but it also has antibacterial properties that help sanitise the surfaces,’ she says.

The three days in Santorini were spent walking, shopping, and absorbing the sights. The streets were narrow, winding and packed with tourists, but it did little to take away from the island’s charm.

‘We kept stopping because every corner made for a photographic moment.’

She also recalls one afternoon when they had planned to go swimming when they noticed crowds of people walking in the same direction. They decided to follow them, only to discover that everyone was going to watch the sunset.

‘The sun was right there. You could almost touch it,’ she says with nostalgia. ‘But it set very quickly. And once it set, everyone clapped.’

Pure YOLO moment

The dramatic landscape added to the experience. The cliffs were so steep that, from where they stood, it felt as though the slightest shift could send them tumbling into the sea. In the surrounding area, they could also see volcanic formations, some with steam rising from them, adding to the feeling that they could erupt at any time.

‘It was a pure YOLO moment,’ she says.

And, of course, what would a trip to Santorini be without the famous flying-dress photos? Angela had hers done away from Oia, where the crowds can make getting the perfect shot a lengthy affair. At the popular Three Domes, she says, visitors can wait up to 30 minutes just for a chance to take a photograph at the spot, and that’s before factoring in the time needed for the photoshoot.

So, on the recommendation of her travel agent, they drove to a quieter town for the shoot. There, Angela chose a gold dress instead of the more common blue.

‘Everyone does blue, so I was like, can I do something different?’ she says, urging anyone visiting Santorini with these photos in mind to consider choosing a colour that contrasts with the island’s blue-and-white backdrop. ‘Experiment with colours. Be part of the beauty.’

Full vacation mode

From Santorini, they took a three-hour ferry, which had proper seating and a VIP area, to Mykonos. If Santorini had felt like a honeymoon, Angela says, Mykonos was where they switched into full vacation mode.

‘I was a bit apprehensive about Mykonos because everyone portrays it as a party town. And while I enjoy a good party, I’m not a party person,’ she says. ‘My partner isn’t either, so I was curious about what it had to offer beyond the nightlife.’

They stayed at Mykonos Riviera, a five-star hotel with sweeping views of the sea and harbour, where cruise ships and yachts came and went. Mornings were unhurried, with long breakfasts overlooking the sea before they headed out to explore.

Their afternoons included exploring Mykonos town and beaches on foot, a boat tour to a nearby UNESCO heritage site, and a sunset cruise which took them along the coastline, past beach clubs and some of the impressive yachts anchored off the island. They also enjoyed a seafood dinner served on board.

At one point, the boat stopped, and passengers jumped into the sea for a swim. Back on board, with music playing, wine flowing, and the sun setting over the sea, the reality of the holiday finally hit her.

‘This is the life we see in the movies. It’s a dream life, but there I was. Me, a girl from Ruiru,’ she says.

Lessons

A dream though it was, the trip was not without its lessons. Getting into Greece in the first place took some planning and readjustments.

The couple had initially hoped to travel in April, but securing a visa appointment pushed their plans back. They applied in January, hoping to make the April trip, but were given an appointment at the Greek embassy in July. Once they attended the appointment, however, the visa came through within a week, allowing them to finally set off on August 23.

Angela Kariuki, founder of Angela’s Closet and Angie on Bonds, enjoys a holiday in Mykonos, Greece, in August 2026.

Pool

‘I wish we knew that the Greek embassy sometimes takes time to issue a visa appointment,’ she says. ‘We would have applied for it about six months in advance.’

She also wishes they had familiarised themselves with local transport and food-delivery apps before arriving. In Athens, they initially used Bolt but sometimes waited as long as 15 minutes for a ride. On another occasion, after a long day of walking, they returned to their hotel wanting to order food, only to discover they had not downloaded the relevant delivery apps. They had to get help from reception to place an order.

The weather and crowds are another consideration she says travellers should factor in.

‘You can go earlier like in April, or later like in October when the prices are much better, the temperatures are much cooler, and the crowds are more manageable, particularly for destinations such as Santorini, which can get extremely busy.’

Trip cost

The trip cost about $12,000 (roughly Sh1.55 million) for the two of them, covering flights, hotels, transfers, activities, meals, and shopping.

‘The cost was heavy on the hotels. We spent about $4800 (Sh620,000) for hotels for the 10 days, but it can be cheaper if you do Airbnbs,’ she says. ‘There are plenty of mini-markets, so you can also cut costs by buying and making some of your own meals. We spent about $ 1,450 (Sh187,000) on meals and shopping.’

Her bigger lesson, however, one that she has learned over more than a decade of travelling, is to approach each destination with an open mind. A foreign country, she says, should not be expected to look, feel or operate like home. The traveller is the one who has to be willing to learn and adapt.

That mindset is part of what has kept Angela travelling since the first trip she intentionally took.

‘It was right after my divorce,’ she says. ‘I was handling crisis after crisis, and I just needed to see what more is there, so I took my children and went to Zanzibar.’

Since then, Angela has travelled with her children, her partner and, at times, on her own, to destinations across the world, including Italy, the Maldives, Japan, and Turkey.

Each trip, she says, gives her a chance to step outside the familiar and see life from a different perspective. Travel, therefore, is not something she leaves for ‘when everything else is sorted’. It is something she deliberately plans and invests toward, and she actively encourages others, particularly women, to do the same.

As the founder of Angie on Bonds, a financial consultancy firm specialising in Treasury bonds, Angela says one of her main goals for investing is to fund her travels.

‘There’s more to life than working and paying bills,’ she says. ‘You can parent, chase careers and run businesses, but we are already in this small space, so why not go out and see what’s out there?’

The High Court has allowed Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB) to recover a $6.5 million (Sh841.7 million) debt from a Kenyan petroleum company after a decade-long financing dispute tied to the collapse of Imperial Bank.

The court ordered Jade Petroleum Limited to pay the debt after finding that MCB had paid the money to South Africa’s FirstRand Bank, trading as Rand Merchant Bank (RMB), when it called guarantees issued to secure debt by the petroleum firm.

The court declined a claim by the petroleum company that the collapse of its banker, Imperial Bank, had frustrated the repayment obligations under the loan facility by MCB.

The judge said that the bank’s receivership did not extinguish its debt. Imperial Bank collapsed into receivership on October 13, 2015, after the bank’s board alerted regulators to suspected fraud, with subsequent investigations finding substantial fraudulent activities and misrepresented financial statements.

‘Imperial Bank was an intermediary through which the facility was administered. The supervening event therefore affected the means by which the first defendant (Jade) ordinarily dealt with RMB, but did not transform the obligation to repay into something radically different or extinguish it,’ said the court.

At the same time, the MCB’s claim against Pankaj Vrajlal Vallabh Somaia, Amar Mahendra Chandra Pandya and Raj Harikrishna Mohanlal Devani, who were sued as guarantors of Jade Petroleum’s loan, was dismissed.

FirstRand Bank financed Jade Petroleum, while Imperial Bank acted as Jade’s banker and intermediary, and Mauritius Commercial Bank issued the standby letters of credit that secured part of Jade’s borrowing.

The court found that Jade had defaulted on its loan and that MCB became entitled to recover the $6.5 million after honouring the standby letters of credit issued on Jade’s behalf.

The September 17, 2026 judgment traces a chain involving Jade, Imperial Bank, FirstRand’s Rand Merchant Bank and MCB, with the dispute turning on liability after the guarantees were called.

The financing began in June 2007, when FirstRand (trading through Rand Merchant Bank – RMB) extended Jade facilities worth $10 million (Sh1.29billion), later increased to $14 million (Sh1.81billion).

Jade’s banker was Imperial Bank, while FirstRand required additional security in 2009. At Imperial Bank’s request, MCB issued five standby letters of credit worth $6.5 million for Jade’s obligations to FirstRand.

In November 2015, FirstRand told Jade that the guarantees were approaching expiry and demanded either their extension or repayment of the outstanding amount, which it put at $7.5 million (Sh971.10 million).

Jade replied that Imperial Bank had been placed under receivership and could not extend the guarantees or repay the debt. It asked for more time and said it was experiencing a liquidity constraint.

‘We shall unfortunately not be in a position to repay these sums as we are currently experiencing a liquidity constraint,’ Jade said in the letter signed by Mr Pandya.

FirstRand declared an event of default on November 18, 2015, and demanded immediate repayment. Jade did not pay, prompting FirstRand to call the MCB guarantees.

MCB paid FirstRand $6.5 million between December 4 and 31, 2015, with SWIFT confirmations identifying Jade Petroleum. FirstRand and MCB later signed a Subrogation and Transfer Agreement transferring FirstRand’s rights, securities and interests to MCB to the extent of the amount paid.

MCB then sued Jade and the three guarantors -Somaia, Pandya and Devani – in June 2016, seeking $6.5 million, interest and costs. Default judgment was entered, but set aside in October 2018, allowing the defendants to defend the claim.

At trial, Jade argued that Imperial Bank’s receivership had frustrated the financing arrangement and that a 2010 amendment had materially changed the facility. The guarantors also argued that the amendment discharged their obligations.

However, the court found Imperial Bank’s collapse affected how Jade dealt with FirstRand but did not remove its repayment duty.

‘Imperial Bank’s receivership did not render the first defendant’s obligation to repay RMB impossible or radically different,’ the High Court said. The court noted that the bank was only an intermediary through which the facility was administered.

‘Although Imperial Bank’s receivership was external to the parties, it did not make Jade Petroleum’s performance impossible or radically different. The frustration defence therefore fails,’ said the judge.

The court also rejected Jade’s claim that the 2010 amendment was obtained under duress. Security requirements rose from 20 per cent to 100 per cent, but Jade continued using the facility.

The court held that MCB became entitled to recover from Jade when it paid FirstRand. It rejected Jade’s argument that MCB could not sue because it had not been a party to the original facility agreement.

‘Upon paying $6.5 million to RMB under the Standby Letters of Credit (SBLC), the plaintiff (Jade Petroleum) became subrogated in equity to RMB’s rights to the extent of that payment,’ the court said.

It also found that the 2010 second amendment of the facility was not proved to be unconscionable or void for duress. This is because Jade continued to utilise the facility on the amended terms for several years.

‘Against that evidence, the fact that the amended terms were onerous is not enough, by itself, to establish unconscionability or duress. The 1st defendant continued to take the benefit of the facility for years after the amendment. I therefore find that the Second Amendment was not shown to be unconscionable or void for duress,’ said the judge.

The three guarantors faced a different outcome. Their guarantee remained valid, but required a formal demand before liability arose.

MCB produced demand letters dated April 21, 2016, but its witness admitted he had no proof showing that the letters had been dispatched or served.

‘I do not have evidence of service of the letter, or the certificate of posting of the demand,’ the witness told the court.

The court said the bank had failed to prove the contractual step needed to make the guarantors liable.

The court entered judgment against Jade alone for $6.5 million. Interest was awarded at LIBOR plus 3.5 per cent until filing, then 14 per cent until payment.

Kenyans borrowed an average of Sh16,341 from digital lenders under the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) in December 2025 as they increasingly tap mini loans for survival needs like food and school fees.

CBK data shows the average loan size grew by Sh2,424, up 17.4 percent from Sh13,917 a year earlier amid a jump in digital loans.

Total borrowing from digital lenders nearly doubled to Sh110.1 billion by December 2025, up 99.6 percent from Sh55.2 billion the previous year, according to CBK disclosures.

This surge followed an increase in the licensing of digital credit providers (DCPs), which jumped from 85 to 195 last year, despite a majority of the firms remaining unlicensed.

A survey by Tala, one of the top digital lenders, showed that the majority of digital borrowers were tapping loans for business and basic needs.

It found that 45 percent of borrowers used loans to stock businesses, 37 percent for school fees, and 23 percent to cover daily needs.

‘Lending by DCPs continued to grow rapidly in 2025, driven by an increase in the number of licensed providers. Gross outstanding loans nearly doubled, rising by 99.6 percent, from Sh55.2 billion in December 2024 to Sh110.1 billion in December 2025. Over the same period, the number of licensed DCPs grew from 85 to 195,’ said the CBK.

Digital lenders have gained traction for their fast, easy access to credit.

By skipping credit bureau checks, they open the door for borrowers blacklisted by banks, saccos, or microfinance institutions to secure loans.

Instead of demanding collateral, DCPs use mobile money transaction history to set loan limits and reward prompt repayment with higher borrowing bands.

The appeal also lies in instant disbursement, with funds sent straight to borrowers’ mobile money accounts.

‘With the continued shift in customer preferences toward more convenient, technology-driven delivery channels, coupled with the rise in the number of licensed DCPs, the banking sector has experienced significant growth in digital lending between 2023 and 2025,’ CBK reported.

By December 2025, digital lenders’ loan books had outpaced microfinance banks, whose customer advances totalled just Sh29.29 billion.

The surge in loan accounts, outstanding credit, and licensed providers underscores just how rapidly digital credit is reshaping Kenya’s lending landscape.

For both consumers and businesses, digital lenders now serve as a key source of short-term credit, accessible directly through mobile phones and digital platforms.

On Monday in New York, at an Accra Reset convening beside the 81st UN General Assembly, President William Ruto said Africa must be a builder of the technologies defining this century and a contributor to the rules that govern them. “Our task,” he said, “is to organise Africa’s capabilities at scale.” Fine words travel light. Refineries do not.

A week earlier, in Lagos, the Dangote refinery opened its initial public offering: 4.1 billion shares at 525 each, seeking about Sh2.15 trillion, billed as the largest share offering in African history.

The Lekki plant is the world’s biggest single-train refinery. In New York on Sunday, Aliko Dangote said he wants 10 million shareholders. Of the businesses he built privately, he reportedly said: “We don’t have partners.”

He built anyway, and the bruises are on the record: a 2025 strike after the refinery dismissed some 800 staff it accused of sabotage, and lawsuits, the latest in May, against fuel import licences granted to NNPC and marketers.

This column is not about Nigeria. It is about the distance between the podium and the plant.

Who builds Africa? In 2020, Chinese firms held 31 percent of all construction projects on this continent worth $50 million or more, according to The Economist.

That was no accident. Around the turn of the century Beijing formalised its “Going Out” strategy, putting state capital and diplomacy behind its companies abroad. South Korea steered directed credit to its chaebol, Samsung and LG among them, from the 1960s.

Call it the borrowed champion. We keep hiring other nations’ founders to build our nations. The elders put it simply: the one who is carried does not know how far the town is. A nation carried by other people’s builders never learns the distance.

Too often, when one of our own grows tall enough to cast a shadow, the politician steps into the ring. Not as backer. As rival. Ambition that could have been national strategy is treated as a threat, then copied, then abandoned, because a venture built on patronage was never designed to finish. It was designed to be controlled.

I know this terrain. I have been building for 25 years. When the Finance Historian, @BoardLotSultan, recently pieced together my record, it returned me to an ambition we pursued nine years ago, at a scale this country had not attempted. Politics squashed it. Those who stopped it have not built it since. Scarcity rarely builds what it blocks. It simply ensures nobody does.

This month’s other headline needs honesty.

The Gates Foundation has committed at least $1 billion over two years to AI for health, farming, education and local-language data, and Bill Gates told CNBC Africa most of it would be spent on this continent. Welcome money. But philanthropy, not equity. Grants plant seedlings. They do not raise forests. A Tata or a Dangote grows when a nation backs its own builders with its own conviction.

That is the test for the Accra Reset, and for MasterKey, the skills platform Kenya will be first to implement nationally. Portable skills are useful, but need somewhere to land.

Without homegrown champions, portable talent becomes better-credentialed labour for someone else’s companies. Executing the President’s sentence needs a posture, not another platform. Procurement that gives local builders a first look. Pension capital that backs national champions.

Counties that treat their most successful citizens as infrastructure, not targets. Hold up the five mirrors and a nation sees what a founder sees. Are homegrown champions assets or risks? Is wealth created by an African wealth taken from Africa? Can our politics tolerate a citizen more consequential than its officeholders? Is prosperity a shared harvest, or a contest for proximity to power?

I hold no brief for any government, and a speech is not a plan. It is a direction. Whether it becomes a road depends on something no summit can legislate: how we regard the people who create wealth. Dangote proves it can be done, and how much a founder must absorb to do it.

The paradox does not resolve. But 10 million shareholders is the real message. A champion owned by his own people is much harder to uproot.

So to every founder who has watched an idea die in a corridor of power: keep building. If 20 of us push through this decade, the next Tata and the next Dangote could be ours. The ceiling was made of politics, not physics.

Borrowed champions build the project. Only our own will build the country.