Data Protection Act 2019
Administered by the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC); broadly GDPR-aligned
Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (Kenya)
Sub-Saharan Africa · GDP rank #31
Kenya
KE · KES @ 0.0077/USD
Kenya is the world's archetypal mobile-money economy — M-Pesa moves about KES 83.7 trillion (~US$650bn) annually across Safaricom's rails, roughly four times Kenyan GDP, and every emerging-market wallet is benchmarked against it. Bank-side rails (PesaLink, KEPSS) are comparatively thin; the CBK has classified M-Pesa as systemically important and the 2024 CBDC paper update confirms a sceptical_no_pilot stance — among the emerging world's most articulate central-bank cases against retail CBDC.
Tab 06
Fraud & security
Headline fraud totals and typology splits, the rollout of EMV chip, tokenisation, 3DS and biometrics, and the controlling data-protection and payments statutes.
Fraud is dominated by social-engineering APP scams on M-Pesa, not card-not-present. Safaricom's 2024 SIM-swap hardening cut ATO attempts materially; Directorate of Criminal Investigations' Cybercrime Unit is flooded.
Reported payment fraud · 2024
4.2B KES▲ +38% vs prior year
Card-not-present share
24%
3DS adoption on CNP
74%
Trend lines
What's growing fastest
Where a full typology breakdown is not published, the authorities typically disclose year-on-year growth in specific scam categories. Authorised push-payment (APP) scams and account-takeover fraud are the canonical “wallet era” concerns in most markets.
- Card-not-present share24%
- APP scam growth YoY+62%
- Account takeover growth YoY+41%
Controlling regulation
Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act 2018
Primary cybercrime statute; criminalises APP fraud, unauthorised access, and SIM-swap facilitation
Parliament of Kenya
Digital Credit Providers Regulations 2022
CBK licensing regime for digital lenders (58 licensed by end-2024); predatory-lending crackdown ongoing
Central Bank of Kenya (CBK)