Kenswitch Launch Puts Kenya’s Domestic Card Infrastructure in Focus

Kenswitch has launched a domestic card scheme in Kenya, prompting fresh discussion about whether the country’s payments infrastructure should develop beyond its long-standing dependence on mobile money.

Kenya’s payments landscape has been strongly shaped by M-Pesa, which began as a peer-to-peer money-transfer service and grew into a central part of everyday commerce. Consumers use mobile money to pay merchants, receive salaries, borrow, save and manage capital, while banks and fintechs commonly connect to mobile-money rails.

Figures cited from the Central Bank of Kenya show that the country had 94.35 million registered mobile-money accounts and 575,400 mobile-money agents by July 2026. Mobile-money transactions were valued at KES 728.7 billion, equivalent to $5.6 billion, during that month.

Card payments remain significant

Despite mobile money’s prominence, Kenya also has a substantial card-payment market. By July 2026, the country had 13.76 million payment cards, including 11.16 million debit cards, alongside 56,083 point-of-sale terminals, according to figures attributed to the Central Bank of Kenya.

Kenyan merchants processed more than 6.2 million POS card transactions in July, with a combined value of KES 27.1 billion, or about $209 million. The figures indicate that cards remain an important part of the country’s payments economy even as mobile money dominates public discussion about financial technology.

International networks such as Visa and Mastercard provide interoperability, allowing cards issued by different institutions to be used across merchants and financial institutions in multiple countries. A domestic scheme would not necessarily replace those networks. Instead, domestic transactions could be routed locally, while international networks remain available for customers making payments abroad.

Potential role for local payment rails

Analysis cited by TechCabal presents the Kenswitch scheme as an opportunity for Kenyan banks and fintechs to gain additional payment rails on which to develop products. Possible areas of experimentation include local pricing, virtual cards, tokenisation, contactless payments and connections with domestic instant-payment infrastructure.

The broader discussion includes other forms of payment infrastructure, including instant account-to-account transfers, interoperable QR codes, tap-to-pay phones, offline payments, open banking and systems that support third-party products.

However, the potential benefits of the scheme have not yet been established as outcomes. Its development will depend on achieving sufficient scale, securing incentives for participants, gaining acceptance from merchants and customers, and maintaining reliable infrastructure.

Lessons from other markets

Other countries have developed domestic payment systems alongside global networks. India launched RuPay in 2012 and later developed the Unified Payments Interface, or UPI. RuPay credit cards were subsequently connected to UPI.

India’s UPI transaction volume rose from 5.39 billion in the 2018–19 financial year to 131.13 billion in 2023–24. Over the same period, transaction value increased from ₹8.8 trillion, or $91.8 billion, to ₹200 trillion, equivalent to $2.09 trillion.

Saudi Arabia’s Mada network provides another example of domestic payment infrastructure supporting payment digitisation. The network recorded 7.2 billion POS transactions in 2022, a 40% year-on-year increase, while online card transactions reached 610 million, up 76%. By 2025, electronic payments represented 85% of Saudi retail payments, with 14.6 billion electronic transactions recorded.

For Kenya, the launch of a domestic card scheme raises questions about how local and international systems can operate together. Payment infrastructure is increasingly viewed as part of the critical infrastructure of modern economies, making resilience and domestic capacity important considerations alongside global interoperability.