Maestro

Musicians play their instruments. I play the orchestra.

[Maestro @MaestroAxiom]

Reason’s the only currency here. Trade yours, if you’ve got it. 📚

[Aziz Mire @aziz_mire]

In 1973, matatu owners went to Gatundu and petitioned President Kenyatta to make them legal.

Bus owners were unhappy. One of them, Dedan Nduati, complained that matatus were undercutting him.

Kenyatta reportedly told him: "Go and sell your buses and buy matatus."

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[Mbabz @Kalasinga_]

I really sympathize with anyone who has ambitions to govern Nairobi.

[Moe @moneyacademyKE]

Kenya’s government has rejected Sh402 billion in pending bills after reviewing claims worth Sh637.6 billion.

Only 29,885 of the 91,911 claims, worth Sh235.6 billion, were recommended for payment.

[Chepkemboi @B_haestro]

Nairobi senate aspirant wants to abolish Mondays, "so that you can rest enough".
A city is collapsing,but Mondays are a problem.

[Charles Onyango-Obbo @cobbo3]

Africa's borrowing costs nearly doubled between 2020 and 2024. Average interest rates rose 91%, from 2.7% to 5.1%, as global borrowing became more expensive.
https://t.co/AZdhcMebpj

[Maestro @MaestroAxiom]

@NdunguWainaina The bit Kenyans should study is how. Two years of protests, then 250 names on an actual ballot and turnout near 70%, highest since 1992. Gen Z here has the streets. Haven't seen the list for 2027 yet.

[Maestro @MaestroAxiom]

@kenyanwalstreet Kakuzi had the title from 1967 and still let a golf club play on it for decades without taking one real step to get it back. Twelve years is all the law gives you. Every absentee landowner in Kenya should be reading this judgment tonight.

[Maestro @MaestroAxiom]

2,083 a month is real money for someone on 32k, fair play. Calling it relief when the guy on 60k pays 473 more is a stretch though. Middle class funding it again.

[Moe @moneyacademyKE]

Workers earning above Sh50,000 could pay more tax under President Ruto’s latest tax relief proposal, while those earning up to Sh32,333 would pay no income tax.

The Bill is expected in Parliament next week, and the changes could cost the Treasury Sh35 billion annually if approved.

[Maestro @MaestroAxiom]

@CKyobutungi Her contacts in Nigeria are Nigeria's to count, agreed. The 21 days won't tell anyone where she caught it though. WHO still has her source as unknown and she flew out of Entebbe. That's the part I'm waiting on, doctor.

[Gichuki Kahome @kahome_steve]

Kenyans should be paying close attention to what’s happening to the Ugandan shilling.

It has fallen more than 14% against the dollar since June, forcing the Bank of Uganda into an emergency rate hike to 12%.

Here’s why it matters to us:

a) Uganda is among Kenya’s largest export markets.

It bought KES 162.4bn of Kenyan goods in 2025, including medicines, cement, metal products, soap and palm oil.

A weaker shilling makes all of that more expensive for Ugandan buyers.

b) Our listed companies are exposed.

KCB, Equity, Stanbic, I&M and DTB all have Ugandan subsidiaries, and EABL owns Uganda Breweries.

Every Ugandan shilling they earn is now worth less when converted into Kenyan shillings.

c) Regional pressure tends to spread.

Uganda’s problems came from the same oil shock and strong dollar that Kenya faces. Our shilling has held around 129.8,

When one of your biggest customer’s currency falls 14%, it eventually shows up in your exports, your companies’ earnings.

[Maestro @MaestroAxiom]

@KinyanBoy Good, and long overdue. 32 people died at that crossing in Dec 2021. It's not 99% though. Ruto was there today and gave it until Dec 10, so it'll be five years from the tragedy to a bridge.

[Maestro @MaestroAxiom]

@CKyobutungi Fair, people on his plane were Kenya's to trace. She wasn't on his plane. If they crossed paths it was inside Entebbe, and only Uganda can find out who else was in that terminal. Haven't seen that list yet.

[Joshua Pi'Rwot @pirwot]

A 9% fee on a 30-day phone loan sounds small. Over a year it comes to 109.5%, and about 185% if the loan keeps rolling. Uganda capped money lenders at 2.8% a month in 2024. MoKash, MTN's loan, is booked by a bank, and the law leaves banks out of that cap.

I am Country Director at AVODA in Uganda. We have trained 600+ founders and supported 100+ startups, and many of them have a loan app on their phone before they have a business bank account. I am also building FounderWise, a tool that turns a founder's real work into a record a lender can read. This post is about the borrower's side of the price: what a phone loan costs, and which rules reach it. My Article this morning covered bank rates after the 14 October hike, so I keep those numbers out of this one.

Every figure below names its source. Where I did the arithmetic, I say so.

THE PRICE OF 30 DAYS

MTN Uganda's MoKash page lists a loan of UGX 3,000 to 1,000,000, valid for 30 days, with a 9% facility fee and a 9% late fee. The lender named in the terms is NCBA Bank Uganda, a licensed bank.

MoKash is typical of MTN's own menu. MoPesa charges 9% for a 30-day loan. MoSente charges 9.5% for 30 days, made up of a 7.5% initiation fee and 2% interest. XtraCash charges 9% for 28 days.

Airtel Uganda's Quick Loans work like an overdraft on Airtel Money. The page lists a 2% application fee plus 1% a day for the first 7 days, with 7 days to repay. Kept for the full week, that is 9% in 7 days, by my arithmetic.

In Kenya, Safaricom's M-Shwari FAQ does the sum for the borrower: "You will however be required to pay back Kshs 1,075 within 30 days because each loan attracts a 7.5% facilitation fee." Its product page adds 1.5% excise duty, so the loan is "charged at 9%" in all.

So on East Africa's biggest mobile money networks, short credit costs about 9% a period. The products differ mainly in how long the period is.

WHAT 9% COSTS OVER A YEAR

To compare a phone loan with any other loan, put it on a yearly basis. Multiply the fee by 365, then divide by the number of days in the loan.

MoKash at 9% for 30 days comes to 109.5% a year in simple terms. MoSente at 9.5% comes to 115.6%. Airtel's Quick Loan, held the full 7 days, comes to about 469% a year. All three are my arithmetic on the lenders' own published prices.

If a 30-day loan rolls all year and each fee is added to the balance, 9% compounds to about 185% a year. That is my arithmetic too, and it assumes the worst case.

Now set those beside the two lines Uganda drew in November 2024. Licensed money lenders may charge at most 2.8% a month, which is 33.6% a year in simple terms. A second set of rules, the Lending Conditions Regulations, caps everything a Tier 4 lender or money lender charges, interest, fees and charges together, at 100% of the principal a year.

A large yearly figure can still be a fair price for a short emergency. A Shs 9,000 fee to cover a hospital bill until payday may be money well spent. The yearly figure starts to matter when the loan stops being short.

WHAT ROLLING DOES

MTN's terms say what happens if you miss day 30: "the Bank will automatically roll over any outstanding amount in respect of the Loan or Top Up amount, for a further period of thirty (30) calendar days." The roll-over fee is "9% of the outstanding amount", charged on the outstanding principal. If the loan is still unpaid by day 60, the bank may close the account.

Take a Shs 100,000 MoKash loan rolled once. By day 60 the fees come to Shs 18,000: Shs 9,000 for the first 30 days and Shs 9,000 for the roll. At the 2.8% money-lender cap, the same Shs 100,000 for two months would cost Shs 5,600. The 100% all-in ceiling for Tier 4 lenders works out to about Shs 16,438 for 60 days. All three are my arithmetic.

M-Shwari works the same way. In Safaricom's words: "Your loan repayment period will be extended for an additional 30 days and you will be charged an additional 7.5% facilitation fee on your outstanding loan balance."

A founder can end up there without meaning to. Picture a tailor who borrows in the first week of the month to buy fabric for school uniforms. The uniforms sell over eight weeks. The loan falls due when perhaps a third of the sales are in. So she rolls it, or borrows from a second app to repay the first. From then on, the loan is paying for the loan. She is an illustration I made up to show the arithmetic, and she is drawn from no founder I know.

HOW BIG THIS MARKET IS

The Bank of Uganda's Financial Stability Review counts 306.3 million digital loan disbursals worth UGX 4.8 trillion in the twelve months to December 2025. Volume rose 352.8% and value 96.1% in a year. That is about UGX 15,700 per loan on average, by my arithmetic, and one borrower can take many loans.

The same Review notes that transactions under UGX 50,000 made up 90.8% of mobile money activity. Uganda built payment rails that reach the smallest trader, which is a real achievement. It is also why the price of credit on those rails matters so much.

WHO THE 2.8% CAP REACHES

The cap rests on section 90 of the Tier 4 Microfinance Institutions and Money Lenders Act of 2016, now section 89 in the revised edition. "The Minister may, in consultation with the Authority, by notice in the Gazette, prescribe a maximum interest rate which a money lender shall charge." The Uganda Microfinance Regulatory Authority's site states the rate set under that power: 2.8%.

The definition does the work. Section 78(2)(a) says a money lender does not include "a company carrying on the business of banking or insurance." The Association of Microfinance Institutions of Uganda reads the notice from the other side: "the interest rate of Tier 4 Microfinance Institutions is not capped as the Legal Notice only applies to Money Lenders."

The Lending Conditions Regulations, in the Gazette on 15 November 2024, close part of that gap. They apply to Tier 4 microfinance institutions and to money lenders. They set the 100% all-in ceiling and ban compound interest. They limit a default penalty to "half of the monthly rate charged", and they require the contract to state the interest as a percentage per year.

Breaking the ceiling carries a fine of up to 48 currency points, which is Shs 960,000, plus up to 10 currency points, Shs 200,000, for each day it continues. That is my arithmetic, at the Act's Shs 20,000 per currency point.

Banks sit outside both sets of rules. MoKash's lender, NCBA Bank Uganda, is licensed under the Financial Institutions Act. By my reading of the statute, a phone loan booked by a bank falls outside rules written for money lenders and Tier 4 institutions. I have not found a regulator statement that says this in words, so treat it as my inference.

The cap is also contested. In October 2025 the Moneylenders Association of Uganda said it had gone to court to halt enforcement, arguing that the government has no legal or economic basis to set rates on privately raised capital, Nile Post reported. I could not find a ruling.

WHAT KENYA CHANGED LAST MONTH

On 29 September Kenya replaced its 2022 digital lender rules with the Central Bank of Kenya (Non-Deposit Taking Credit Providers) Regulations, 2026. Every advert must now "include the annual percentage rate and components of total cost of credit." A lender may not change its pricing "without the prior written approval of the Bank." It may not use a customer's phone book to chase a late loan. Lenders already operating have six months to apply for a license.

The Central Bank of Kenya says 281 digital credit providers are licensed. By August 2026 they had made 9,596,509 loans worth KSh 165.1 billion.

Uganda already has several of these pieces. UMRA's 2024 Digital Lending Guidelines bar licensed digital lenders from using a borrower's contact list "as a way of e-KYC or delinquency management." UMRA's Loan Shop lets borrowers "compare loans and contact financial institutions without any agent or commisions." The 2024 contract rule asks for a yearly rate.

The piece still missing is one yearly price shown on every phone loan, including the ones banks book. That is a small and practical step, and the Bank of Uganda and UMRA could agree it between them.

THE STRONGEST CASE FOR THE PHONE LOAN

Digital credit reaches people a bank branch never sees. It arrives in minutes, with no collateral and no business plan. The best study I know says it makes households safer.

For the National Bureau of Economic Research, Prashant Bharadwaj, William Jack and Tavneet Suri compared Kenyan borrowers just above and just below M-Shwari's credit-score cutoff. With access to the loans, "households are 6.3 percentage points less likely to forego expenses due to negative shocks."

I accept that. For a family hit by a shock, readiness before capital is the wrong order. A cap or a course that slowed the money down could cost them more than the fee.

The same authors draw the limit. The loans "are largely used to pay for schooling and for emergency purposes and not for business or working capital purposes." They conclude the loans are "not a panacea for greater credit market failures." Short phone credit is a good tool for a shock and an expensive one for stock that sells over eight weeks.

THE THIRTY-DAY TEST

Before the next loan on your phone, take a pen and half an hour.

1. Write the yearly price. Multiply the fee by 365 and divide by the days in the loan. At 9% for 30 days, the answer is 109.5%.

2. Name the week that repays it. Write the due date and the sales that will clear the loan. If those sales land after the due date, the loan will roll, and each roll repeats the fee.

3. Check who is lending. A bank sits outside the 2.8% cap and the 100% ceiling. A licensed money lender is bound by both. A Tier 4 microfinance institution is bound by the ceiling. The lender's name is in the app's terms.

4. Check the app's permissions. An app that asks for your contacts is asking for something UMRA's guidelines forbid a licensed digital lender to use for collection.

5. Keep one loan at a time, and log it. Write down the borrow date and the repayment date, and repay on the day. That record is what a cheaper lender will ask to see.

At AVODA we teach customers first, records second and outside money third. The price list above is that order written in shillings.

Proverbs 22:7 says "the borrower is servant to the lender." I read that as a warning about the terms, more than a judgment on borrowing. A founder who knows the yearly price, and repays on the day, keeps the servant part short. A lender who shows that price up front treats the borrower as a neighbor.

Before you borrow again, check how ready your books are with AVODA's Business Capability Assessment at https://t.co/4g3Cwt17lr. If you lend, regulate or fund digital credit in Uganda, or you have a loan decision coming up, book a strategy call with me at https://t.co/j9fKb2Crjc.

Which loan on your phone today would you still take if the app showed its price per year?

[Maestro @MaestroAxiom]

@kenyanwalstreet Chase went under in April 2016 and its microfinance arm only finds a buyer ten years later. A consulting firm from Malta buying a whole deposit-taking bank deserves a proper look from CBK at who's really behind it, not just a competition stamp.

[Maestro @MaestroAxiom]

@pirwot Fair catch, wrong months on my part. August was 17.9 on loans against about 11 on the bill, so nearly 7 points. The bill's at 14.5 now after the hike, and until loans reprice that gap is thin. If they jump to 21 like you say, founders just get priced out instead.

[Maestro @MaestroAxiom]

@CKyobutungi Surprise is fair. Kudos for a list Uganda drew up after Kenya flagged him, with no passengers on it, less so. And no, I don't have the full facts on her case. Nobody does, because Uganda hasn't said a word about her contacts.

[Maestro @MaestroAxiom]

@CKyobutungi Fair, JKIA missed him too and Kenya should own that. But you're defending Uganda with "we don't screen people leaving". That's the hole. He'd been sick a month in Congo, crossed Uganda by road and boarded at Entebbe. Nobody looked at him at the border either?

[Maestro @MaestroAxiom]

@CKyobutungi Your own first what-if was that she caught it from him. If she did, she's his contact, and she's not on his list. That's the gap. And waiting three weeks for a statement isn't tracing.

[Maestro @MaestroAxiom]

@CKyobutungi Wrong case. She never went to Kenya, she flew to Abuja through Addis, so she's on nobody's list. If they met, it was at Entebbe, Uganda's own airport. And contacts abroad get traced the way Uganda found out about him. Kenya called.

[Maestro @MaestroAxiom]

@CKyobutungi If Uganda did it, say so. The minister went public with 60 contacts for one case. He can do the same for hers. Until then "just in case" is trust me, not a measure.