The nature of competition among Kenyan banks has fundamentally changed. Rather than competing on interest rates, loan terms or physical branch presence, banks now battle for customer loyalty through payment systems. According to SBM Bank CEO Bhartesh Shah, the decisive moments in winning customer trust now happen in the seconds it takes to transfer money between accounts or tap a card at an automated teller machine.
This shift reflects how payment interactions have become the most frequent and visible contact between banks and their customers. While a customer might check a loan balance once yearly or renegotiate a mortgage once a decade, they send money, withdraw cash and make purchases dozens of times monthly. Each transaction represents an opportunity for banks to build trust or lose customers to frustration.
Mobile money platforms have accelerated this transformation across Africa faster than in most other regions. Services like M-Pesa established expectations that transfers should be instant and require minimal effort, achievable from a mobile phone in seconds rather than requiring branch visits and queues. Traditional banks that moved slowly to match this convenience found themselves competing not only with each other but also with telecom-led payment ecosystems that became the default money transfer method for millions of people.
Payment systems have transformed from background operations into the frontline of brand competition. Banks now prioritise becoming the preferred channel through which money moves daily, without delays or friction. Whoever establishes this routine relationship with customers can later cross-sell lending, savings, insurance and investment products.