Tread carefully on Kenya’s bank lending rates

NAIROBI: Kenya’s banking sector is one of the most profitable, and yet borrowers have not readily benefited from its expansion. This has no doubt triggered events of the last few days where MPs presented for presidential assent the Banking (Amendment) Bill 2015 which seeks to put a cap on lending rates.

The populist emotions this Bill has generated should not be lost on banks which have resisted repeated attempts to reduce lending rates to the satisfaction of most of their customers.