Kenya & Rwanda Signs A Pact for Fintech Companies to Operate Across Borders
The two central banks have signed a deal that could finally cut through the red tape holding back cross-border payments in East Africa.
If you’ve ever tried to send money from Nairobi to Kigali, or tried to build a fintech startup that serves both countries, you already know the problem. The rules are different. The licenses are separate. The paperwork doubles. And the delays? They just become part of the cost of doing business.
That might be about to change.
This week in Kigali, on the sidelines of the Inclusive FinTech Forum, the Central Bank of Kenya and the National Bank of Rwanda signed a memorandum of understanding that tackles this issue head-on. The goal is simple: let a payment company licensed in one country operate more easily in the other.
What the Deal Actually Does
The agreement sets up what’s called a “passporting” framework. If you’re familiar with how banking works in Europe, you’ll recognize the idea. In the EU, a company licensed in one member state can offer services across the entire bloc without applying for separate licenses everywhere.
East Africa isn’t there yet. But this deal between Kenya and Rwanda is a step in that direction.
Right now, if a Kenyan fintech wants to expand to Rwanda, it has to navigate two separate licensing processes. The requirements are often similar, but that doesn’t matter—you still have to do everything twice. That means more time, more money, and more lawyers. For smaller companies with good ideas but limited resources, it can kill the expansion before it starts.
Gerald Nyaoma Arita, the deputy governor of the Central Bank of Kenya, put it plainly at the signing ceremony. Payment firms expanding regionally face “significant regulatory hurdles.” The fragmentation, he said, “increases costs and slows the delivery of innovative solutions.”
The new framework is supposed to fix that. A joint technical committee will now figure out the details—how exactly the passporting will work, what rules apply, and how supervision will happen when a company operates across borders.
This Has Been a Long Time Coming
The two central banks have been talking about this kind of cooperation since at least 2015. But the timing now matters.
In May last year, the East African Community approved a Cross-Border Payments Master Plan. The whole point was to make payment systems work better across the region. This Kenya-Rwanda deal is the first concrete result—less than a year later, as Arita noted.
That speed matters. Anyone who follows regional cooperation in Africa knows how slowly these things usually move. Getting from a regional plan to a bilateral agreement in under a year is actually impressive.
What This Means for Fintech
From own perspective, this is the kind of development that doesn’t make flashy headlines but changes the ground for everyone building in this space.
Think about what Kenyan fintech has achieved domestically. Mobile money, digital lending, payment rails that millions use every day. But taking those innovations across borders has always been the hard part. Different regulators, different rules, different politics.
If this passporting framework works, it creates a template. Kenya and Rwanda are proving the concept. If other countries in the region see it working, they’ll have reasons to join.
For fintech founders, this means you can start thinking about a regional market from day one, not as an afterthought once you’ve conquered your home country. For investors, it means startups have a clearer path to scale. And for ordinary people sending money to family across borders or businesses paying suppliers in neighboring countries, it should eventually mean cheaper, faster, more reliable payments.
The Details Still Need to Be Filled In
It’s worth being clear about what this agreement is and isn’t. It’s a framework. It’s a commitment to cooperate. It’s the groundwork.
The actual passporting mechanism still needs to be built. The technical committee has work to do—deciding exactly how licensing will work across borders, how supervision will be shared, how disputes will be handled. Those details matter enormously. A badly designed passporting system could create as many problems as it solves.
But the political will is there. Both central banks are publicly committed. And the regional master plan gives them a roadmap.
What Next
IThe bigger story here is about how African financial integration actually happens. It doesn’t come from grand continental declarations alone. It comes from deals like this one—two countries, facing real problems, deciding to solve them together.
The East African Community has talked about payment integration for years. Now we’re seeing real movement. Other pairs of countries will be watching. If Kenya and Rwanda make this work, Uganda and Tanzania will have reasons to follow. So will Ethiopia and the DRC as they open up.
For anyone building in fintech, the message is clear: the region is slowly becoming a single market. Start planning for that now.
For this kind of news and more, visit us at MUIAA Ltd where we offer research, advice and build modern day innovations in blockchain, fintech, and digital finance across emerging markets. We help turn ground-level realities into practical financial tools.
