15 stories
Daily Brief ·
KES 100,000 over the next year: from KES 3,009 in savings to KES 7,680 locked in a T-bill
Kenya's one-year Treasury bill locks in 9.04% today; a money market fund floats with the market. We ran three paths for rates to October 2027 and worked out what each option would leave a saver with KES 100,000 after tax. Scenarios, not advice.
Daily Brief ·
The new map of who lends to African governments: the home crowd bids 1.5 times the ask
Bill auctions in Kenya, Ghana and Zambia now draw about 1.5 times what the government asks for, up from roughly 1.0 to 1.4 a year ago. Over the same weeks, borrowing in dollars got dearer. What the shift means for savers, funds and finance ministries, and three ways it could go.
Explainer ·
How to lend to your government: buying bills and bonds in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania
Several African governments let ordinary people lend to them directly, some from small amounts. What each official source says, country by country: Kenya’s Treasury bills from KSh 50,000, Nigeria’s FGN Savings Bond from ₦5,000, South Africa’s Retail Savings Bonds, and Tanzania’s Treasury bills.
Explainer ·
Small savings grow: how compound interest works
KES 1,000 a month for five years becomes about KES 64,700 at a savings-account rate and about KES 75,700 at a money-market-fund rate. Why the rate you earn matters more over time.
Explainer ·
Exchange rates: what a stronger or weaker shilling means for you
How to read “129.76 shillings per dollar”, what it means when the shilling weakens or strengthens, and who wins and loses: importers, exporters, families paying fees abroad, and anyone buying fuel.
Explainer ·
Inflation and your money: the real return
If prices rise faster than your savings grow, you are getting poorer while your balance goes up. How to work out the real return, and why it decides whether saving is working.
Explainer ·
The real cost of a loan: flat rate, reducing balance and fees
Two loans can both say 15% and cost very different amounts. How flat-rate and reducing-balance interest work, why fees matter, and three questions to ask before you sign.
Explainer ·
Money market funds, explained: yield, tax and risk
A money market fund pools savers’ money into short-term government and bank paper. What “daily yield” and “effective annual yield” mean, how the 15% withholding tax works, and what can go wrong.
Explainer ·
What is a Treasury bill, and how can I buy one?
A Treasury bill is a short loan you make to the government for 91, 182 or 364 days. How the price and the rate work, using the real auction of 5 October 2026, the KSh 50,000 minimum, the tax, and how individuals buy directly through the Central Bank.
Daily Brief ·
Kenyan investors want the 91-day bill, not the one-year
Every 91-day bill auction since August drew at least 1.7 times the amount offered; the 364-day bill fell short of its offer in two of the last five. The extra year pays only 0.27 points more.
Daily Brief ·
Kenya’s rate cuts: savers lost twice what borrowers gained
In two years the one-year Treasury bill fell from 16.73% to 9.04%. Banks cut what they pay depositors by 4.2 points but what they charge borrowers by only 2.5, so the gap between the two widened from 5.70 to 7.43 points.
Daily Brief ·
When the T-bill result notice posts: a 12-minute file
The habit brief: what a treasury desk files in the twelve minutes after CBK publishes a Treasury bill result notice — without inventing this week’s print.
Daily Brief ·
How to read a CBK Monetary Policy Committee statement
A desk method for reading an MPC statement as a primary document — rate line, diagnostics, and operations — without treating the headline as the whole decision.
Daily Brief ·
How to read a Treasury bill calendar without inventing the print
A method for using CBK auction calendars and result notices as primary sources — tenors, announcement, auction, and settlement — without treating a remembered yield as a fact.
Explainer ·
Who sets what: CBK, CMA, NSE, and the National Treasury
A map of institutional roles in Kenya’s banking and capital-markets system — who issues, who regulates, who operates the exchange, and who sets policy rates — so a desk does not cite the wrong primary.
More to read
- Receipts →Our daily verdict on one money event, with the figures from the source
- Casebook →What happened before, who lost, and what to ask now
- The Wire →Headlines from African business media, linked to the publisher
- The Morning →The day's rates and currencies, every weekday
- Asubuhi →The Morning in Kiswahili
- Archive →Every edition, by date
- Topics →Stories grouped by subject
- Institutions →Stories by regulator and central bank