Kenya's draft National Payment System Bill 2026 would give the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) expanded powers to inspect payment service providers and payment system operators, remove officers it deems responsible for breaches and appoint managers.
Under the draft, authorised CBK officers may enter a provider’s premises with or without prior notice, inspect and retain books, accounts, documents, equipment and other records, and extend the same authority to the provider’s agents; the regulator may also conduct off-site surveillance and supervise a provider together with its parent or related companies.
The Bill would also allow CBK to intervene in a provider’s management if it fails to meet customer obligations, defaults on financial duties, disregards a CBK directive or threatens financial stability, giving the regulator powers to appoint a statutory manager for an initial term of up to 12 months, remove or replace officers, appoint qualified board members, revoke mandates, restrict new payment business or prevent the appointment of new agents; the High Court could approve an additional 12-month term for the manager.
Kenya’s payments market now handles a far larger and more interconnected flow of money than the 2011 framework covered, with mobile-money subscriptions reaching 54.01 million by June 2026 and Safaricom’s M-Pesa processing 46.4 billion transactions worth KSh41.7 trillion in the financial year ended March 2026; about KSh250 billion in customer funds were held in trust accounts according to the latest CBK figures.
The draft replaces the National Payment System Act 2011 and introduces a broader licensing regime covering authorisation, governance, market conduct, interoperability, open finance, outsourcing, agents, system audits, trust arrangements, clearing and settlement, cross-border payments and payment transparency, while retaining requirements for trust-account protection and imposing offences for refusing lawful questions, providing false information or obstructing officers.
The Bill distinguishes between payment service providers that issue or process electronic money and payment system operators that run the underlying infrastructure, extending supervision to the wider network that links banks, mobile-money platforms, merchants, fintechs and other institutions.
The proposal aligns with a wider expansion of financial regulation in Kenya, as CBK reviews banking and fintech frameworks and the 2026 virtual-asset regime assigns oversight of digital assets to the central bank and the Capital Markets Authority.
The draft Bill and accompanying National Payment System Policy have been published for comment, and “Public participation on the Bill is running until October 9, 2026,” allowing payment companies, banks, fintechs, consumer groups and other stakeholders to submit feedback.
