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FX

Receipts

One money event a day, with the receipt

The figures from the source, our verdict labelled as opinion, and dated calls that go on our record. Information, not advice.

  • Markets DeskReceipt

    Kenya's diaspora money: North America sent US$245m less in nine months, and the US tax is only 1%

    Our verdict · Opinion

    In our view, the US remittance tax is too small and too narrow to explain an 11.19% fall in money from North America on its own; the bigger, steadier cost for most senders is still the fee, and the shilling can absorb this fall, but a family that depends on one relative in America cannot.

    Kenyans abroad sent home US$3.769bn from January to September 2026, US$5.2m less than a year earlier. North America sent US$245.2m less, down 11.19%. The new US tax is 1% and applies only to transfers paid in cash or similar paper. The average fee on US$200 from the US was 5.2% in the last World Bank survey in our file.

  • Markets DeskReceipt

    The shilling that stopped falling: KES 314,200 off a US$10,000 loan, KES 15,710 off a US$500 transfer

    Our verdict · Opinion

    The shilling's recovery was real and, in every CBK bulletin we read, it has held for two and a half years, but it was a transfer, not a gift: anyone who owes or pays in dollars now needs about a fifth fewer shillings, and every family living on dollars from abroad gets about a fifth fewer.

    The CBK rate hit KES 161.36 to the US dollar on 23 January 2024. By 28 March 2024 it was KES 131.80, and on 8 October 2026 it was KES 129.94. A US$10,000 debt now costs KES 314,200 less in shillings; a US$500 monthly transfer from abroad buys KES 15,710 less.

  • Markets DeskReceipt

    The T-bill party is over: KES 500,000 in a one-year bill now earns KES 33,700 a year less

    Our verdict · Opinion

    The fall from 17% to 9% is the price of lower inflation and cheaper loans, and the savers who treated 2024's rates as normal are the ones paying it.

    In April 2024 the 364-day Treasury bill paid 16.99%. At today's auction it paid 9.04%. On KES 500,000, that is KES 72,009 a year after tax then and KES 38,308 now. The CBK cut its rate from 13% to 8.75%, and savers moved to money market funds, which have grown from KES 171 billion to KES 460 billion in two years.

Briefs, weekly notes and explainers are in Stories.