The Central Bank of Kenya, CBK, has revealed that it has been working on the National Payments System (NPS) Vision Strategy.
CBK has, as of January 2021, published the draft document. The strategy is said to have been developed after collaborations with industry experts and other stakeholders through various meetings and engagements.
The document, which can be read here , calls for public participation before further developments can be made.
The CBK is also asking the public to use the attached template to submit their input and comments. All that should be done before January 22, 2021. The comments should also be submitted to NPSstrategy@centralbank.go.ke .
For housekeeping reasons, NPS envisions to enhance Kenya’s global leadership in digital payments. Thus, it seeks to build a robust, secure and collaborative payments system that will power the state’s economy as Kenya attempts to go into a cash-lite system.
At the same time, NPS main priorities are policy and regulation, security and a robust payments infrastructure. The system also seeks to integrate interoperability feature, a working complaints mechanism and a service that runs at all times.
It should be noted that development of the draft document is backed up by various payments legislation of the last decade and a half.
For instance, the Kenya Electronic Payment and Settlement System (KEPSS) was instituted and modernized in 2005.
In 2011, the state enacted the NPS Act, which was then followed by NPS Regulations in 2014.
Also, back in 2007, the CBK facilitated the introduction of mobile money services, which is also the same year that telco Safaricom launched M-PESA.
Kenya has also been trying to manage the spread of the Coronavirus through exercises such as cashless payments, all supported by a strong payment system foundation.The strategy further sets out the vision of NPS for the next five years, that is from 2021-2025. It is also aligned to the Digital Economy Blueprint , the Digital Financial Policy Paper and Vision 2030 and Post-COVID Recovery Strategies.As said, the document is linked above for assessment before the public participation submissions.