FINTECH
Stanbic Bank Kenya confirms Michael Mutiga as CEO
The Central Bank cleared the appointment on 15 September, ending Abraham Ongenge's acting stint since March — he returns to heading Personal and Private Banking. Mutiga arrives with an unusual mix for a bank CEO: Chief Business Development and Strategy Officer at Safaricom, about 15 years at Citibank rising to Managing Director and Head of Corporate Finance for Sub-Saharan Africa, and senior investment banking at Barclays, with law degrees from Nairobi and Temple. He takes over a good half: Stanbic Holdings posted KSh6.6 billion after-tax profit and 27% asset growth to KSh602 billion, recovering from a flat 2025 on much lower impairment charges.
TechTrends KE
GOVERNMENT
The next Hustler Fund wants your bank, Sacco and mobile-lender record
A proposal in the State Department for MSMEs' draft 2027/28–2028/29 spending framework would pilot using borrowing and repayment records from banks, Saccos, mobile lenders and others to set higher limits for repeat Hustler Fund borrowers — roughly 10 million of them, 4.5 million already rated A or B on internal repayment. Partners named include the CBK, the Kenya Bankers Association, credit reference bureaus, Safaricom and Sacco regulators, with sharing described as consumer-led and consent-based. The precedent is the December 2024 bridge product: up to three times the existing limit at 8% a year over 30 days, scored A1 to C3. It is a planning document, not a launch — and the hard parts are data quality, telling borrowers how their records are used, and fixing them when they are wrong.
TechTrends KE
INFRASTRUCTURE
Spiro and Yadea team up as Kenya's e-boda market gets crowded
Yadea — which claims over 100 million electric vehicles sold across 100-plus countries, ten plants and more than 2,000 patents — will supply machines that Spiro folds into its battery-swap network, now running in seven African countries, with a plan to design bikes specifically for African road conditions and commercial riders. Spiro recently raised $270 million, NewTrails Capital among the backers. The timing is pointed: Yadea has just entered Kenya directly aimed at boda boda operators, and this is the third swap-network story in a fortnight after SUN Mobility's open network and ARC Ride's $33.3 million round.
TechTrends KE
POLICY
KENIC wants a million .ke domains. It has 129,140
Registrations reached 129,140 by June 2026, up 16.06% from 111,268 — comfortably ahead of the 3.6% average growth for country-code domains worldwide, and still a pace at which a million takes three or four decades. About 89% sit under .co.ke, so this is a business market. The honest obstacle is that a Kenyan trader can already run a whole business on social media, M-PESA and WhatsApp without a website, and the KSh1,000-a-year registration is the small part of the cost next to hosting, design and upkeep. KENIC's answer is AI site builders, a mobile app, a Zoho partnership and diaspora ambassadors.
TechTrends KE
FINTECH
Flutterwave becomes a receiving agent for the Dangote IPO
Nigerians can now apply for Dangote Refinery shares inside Flutterwave, which is acting as a licensed receiving agent alongside SEC-licensed brokers including Chapel Hill Denham — with the same ₦525 price, ₦5,250 minimum and 13 October close. Applicants supply a BVN, share quantity, next-of-kin and bank details, and funds sit in a designated collection account separate from Flutterwave's operating money. It also runs through Flutterwave for Business dashboards, the Send App for Nigerians abroad, and OWO by Mono over WhatsApp. For a fuller look at what an app-distributed IPO means for Nairobi, see our piece on fintechs powering the Dangote IPO.
TechTrends KE
