FINTECH
Kotani Pay takes stablecoin payouts continental with DCSPay
Nairobi-based Kotani Pay partnered with DCSPay to run stablecoin-powered payouts across Africa: DCSPay brings the wallet, checkout, onboarding and compliance layer, while Kotani converts USDT and USDC into local currency and settles through mobile money and USSD rails. The rollout starts in Nigeria before extending to Kenya, Ghana, Egypt, South Africa and Tanzania, targeting supplier payments and merchant settlements. CEO Felix Macharia's pitch: businesses shouldn't rebuild payment infrastructure for every new market.
TechArena
GOVERNMENT
Ruto rolls back the cargo taxes squeezing small online importers
After a State House meeting with small traders, President Ruto ordered KRA to cut the consolidated-cargo customs benchmark from KES 3.2 million back to KES 2.5 million and Kenya Railways to slash its 20-foot container charge from KES 75,000 to KES 10,000. The August hikes had hit traders importing KES 50,000–200,000 worth of goods through shared containers — the backbone of Kenya's small e-commerce import trade. KRA must also publish a list of high-value goods excluded from consolidation and build a formal consolidator register.
Techweez
FINTECH
Standard Bank wants Stanbic to be Kenya's biggest bank by 2030
Group CEO Sim Tshabalala says Standard Bank will grow Stanbic Kenya — currently sixth in the market — into the country's largest bank by 2030, organically rather than by acquisition, expanding from its corporate franchise into mid-market and retail banking. The digital tell: new Stanbic Kenya CEO Michael Mutiga arrives with payments-ecosystem experience from Safaricom. The play contrasts with Absa deepening its existing stake and Nedbank buying control of NCBA.
TechTrends KE
STARTUPS
Glovo and eBee want five times more women delivering in Nairobi
Glovo Kenya and e-mobility firm eBee launched "She Delivers", pairing electric bikes with rider training to lift women from 1% to 5% of Glovo's 2,500-plus daily couriers within a year — roughly 25 riders today to about 125. A 16-woman pilot cohort goes first, with eBee handling e-bike training, safety and maintenance. The launch comes as Uber acquires Glovo's parent Delivery Hero, with the Kenyan operation expected to run on independently.
Khusoko
AI
ChatGPT, Claude and Grok all went down on the same afternoon
Kenya's developers and support desks got a jolt on 3 September when the three big AI assistants failed within the same window: ChatGPT was out for about 40 minutes on routing errors, Claude suffered a roughly three-hour partial outage across its app, API and coding tools, and Grok buckled after a Memphis data-centre failure — with Azure networking trouble in the same window the prime suspect. No shared root cause was confirmed, but the simultaneous failure is a reminder of how much daily work now leans on a handful of AI providers.
Techweez
POLICY
BAKE calls editor's abduction "a direct attack on journalistic work"
The Bloggers Association of Kenya condemned the 1 September abduction of Standard Group associate editor Alex Kiprotich, seized by armed men on the Gilgil–Nakuru highway and released hours later near Masinga Dam — the second attempt on him this year. His captors questioned him about the Standard's editorial processes, BAKE said, demanding an independent investigation and protection of journalists under Article 34. The attack lands months after the Court of Appeal struck down the Cybercrimes Act's "false information" provisions.
Techweez
