Banking in Kenya dates back to the pre-colonial periods. The first banks largely concentrated on financing international trade along the Europe-South Africa–India axis, but later diversified operations to tap the opportunities for profitable banking created by a growing farming settler community and pioneer traders in the local economy to whom they provided deposit and credit facilities.
Indian money lenders operating quasi bank services as early as the 18th century were probably the first bankers but the first recognisable bank was Jetha Lila Bankers from India, which was established in Zanzibar in 1880. In 1889 the National Bank of India appointed the trade house of Smith Mackenzie to be their agent in Zanzibar. Smith Mackenzie had a Mombasa branch in 1887 which was taken over by the Imperial British East Africa (IBEA) in 1888. The National Bank of India established its own office in Zanzibar in 1892. In July 1896 the National Bank of India established a branch in Mombasa renting premises from Sheriff Jaffer.
In April 1909, the East Africa Post Office Savings Bank Ordinance was passed and in April of the following year, the Ordinance for the Regulation of Banks established in the East Africa Protectorate was passed. The former Ordinance established the first bank in the formal sense while the latter enabled the National Bank of India to become the first commercial bank. By 1911 there were only three banks : The National Bank of India, The Standard Bank of South Africa that came in December 1910 which later merged with Anglo-Egyptian Bank Ltd to form Barclays Bank in 1926 and Kathiawad and Ahmedabad Banking Corporation which had a short-lived presence in Mombasa from 1910 to 1915.
In 1920 the East Africa Protectorate was declared a colony of the British Empire and its name changed to Kenya. The new colonial starters helped the Banks grow rapidly mainly through European Deposits and Asian customers. The banking services were not available to Africans, the only banking sources for Africans was the Post Office savings bank which started in 1910 as a department of the Colonial Postal service, even then the service was only available in places where Officials of the colonial service were stationed and therefore did not reach the majority of Africans who resided in rural areas.
The steadily growing economy in Kenya would soon lead to an influx of new banks between 1950 and 1959. In 1951 the Dutch bank Nedelandsche […]