On 25^th May 2022, KEPSA CEO Ms. Carole Kariuki hosted a team from the FirstRand Bank led by Mr. Muzi Nkosi, Head Coverage Africa – Corporates, at the KEPSA Offices. The engagement focused on steps that new banks can take to expand and succeed in the Kenyan economy.

During the meeting Ms. Kariuki shared KEPSA’s role in dealing with cross cutting issues and highlighted the various engagements between the Private sector and the Government. Ms. Kariuki updated the team on the current KEPSA projects and programs that KEPSA is engaged in. Additionally, she was keen to point out the following areas where more need to be done in the country’s economy: 

• SMEs as drivers of the economy and highly benefit the youth and women.
• Regulatory framework growth challenges visa vis the growth of services; more needs to be done towards promoting the migration to digitalization.
• Unpredictable tax regime and the head way towards a new national taxation policy.

Conclusively Ms. Kariuki mentioned that there was need for harmonization in the banking sector where a majority of banks could tap into the export market to help in promoting and facilitating it by going sectoral in lending channels e.g. look into Agriculture, Real estate as this will prove to be a more value add.

The FirstRand team on its side shared their interest on KEPSA membership and the registration of foreign companies in the country.

FirstRand is a large integrated financial services business operating in South Africa, chosen markets in sub-Saharan Africa and the UK. Many of their businesses units are leaders in their respective segments and markets, and offer a broad range of transactional, lending, investment and insurance products and services. The Group is focused on growing its presence in certain key markets, where it believes it can build competitive advantage and scale over time.