Kenya’s financial sector identifies its biggest roadblock

Nairobi, 19th February 2024: At a time when Africa is witnessing a fast-progressing digital revolution, Kenya has already emerged as the mobile money capital of the world. Housing over 400 fintech companies, Kenya’s fintech industry got a further boost by the National Broadband Strategy for 2018–2023 which earlier disclosed a proposed target of 100 percent connectivity by 2023.

However, while harnessing inexpensive, accessible tech to mobilize consumers, the Silicon Savannah’s financial sector has suffered a massive number of cyber-attacks. Last year, one of the attacks even resulted in an outage of over 5,000 public services for more than two days, also encapsulating the internet-based and mobile payment platforms. Having ranked as the 35th most cyber-attacked country worldwide by Kaspersky, the cybercriminals are coming with new innovative ways to attack the financial institutions.

The latest Capital Markets Authority (CMA) Soundness report has clearly stated that with the growing popularity of wealth management applications on mobile and via cloud-based services, there has been a continuous spike in attacks such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), ransomware and phishing.

To mitigate the situation, the National Cybersecurity Strategy (2022–2027) has been issued as a counter-response for the upcoming challenges and emerging threats in the cyber space, which also aligns with Kenya’s Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act (CMCA).

While the world is now eyeing the tech events in Kenya, 2024 is going to feature yet another edition of World Financial Innovation Series (WFIS), also recognized as the “Leading Financial Expo in Kenya”, that’s anticipated to feature the most innovative fintech solutions along with cutting-edge intel on the most pressing industry topics.

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