Position Title: Remittance Project Market Analyst
FSD Kenya 2022-2026 strategy
The Financial Sector Deepening Kenya (FSD Kenya) is an independent Trust dedicated to the achievement of a financial system that delivers value for a green and inclusive digital economy, while improving financial health and capability for women and micro and small enterprises (MSEs). FSD works closely with Government, the financial services industry and other partners to develop financial solutions that better address the real-world challenges faced by low-income households, enterprises and underserved groups such as women and youth. FSD’s current strategy (2022 – 2026) sets to contribute to the development of a financial market offering useful, affordable, and trusted financial solutions for Kenyans and Kenyan enterprises, especially for women and micro and small enterprises. The Strategy focuses on shifting 3 key functions of the financial market towards more inclusive finance. These functions are effective policy, regulation and vision, open financial market infrastructure and value adding financial solutions.
Remittances is recognised as a key enabler to achieving Kenya’s long-term development goals as they enable socio-economic growth and transformation of livelihoods through their wide reach, especially to low-income households and rural populations. These flows enable livelihoods to manage day-to-day and increase their resilience through covering medical, educational, and housing expenses as well as covering various emergencies such as crop failure and emergency medical treatment. They are also used to start and sustain small businesses.
IFAD and the PRIME - Africa programme
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has an on-going programme, PRIME Africa - the Platform for Remittances, Investments and Migrants’ Entrepreneurship, which focuses on seven African countries (including Kenya). The main objectives of PRIME Africa are to support the cost reduction of diaspora remittances, increase digitisation of the international remittances, foster the adoption of remittances formal channels, and increase the financial inclusion use cases through remittances. The project produced a diagnostic on the Kenyan remittance market in 2021, as well as an accompanying roadmap to guide activities to help make improvements to the market. The implementation activities following this include interventions that support both the private and public sector players.
Remittances in the Kenyan context
Remittances are important for Kenya and is an area that has receiving increased attention in recent years. In many ways, Kenya has been seen as the ‘poster child of digital diaspora remittances, due, in many ways, to the widespread adoption of mobile money domestically since 2007. Kenya is a net receiver of remittances. According to data from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), remittances inflows to Kenya totalled USD 3.7 billion in 2021, accounting for over 3 percent of GDP. Despite the significant contribution of remittances to Kenya’s economy, there still exists constraints in the remittance market that are altogether holding back more efficient outcomes for the broader economy and for downstream recipients. Of these, cost continues to be a major barrier with CBK data showing that the average cost of sending remittances was in the range of 4%-6% of the amount sent depending on the remittance corridor. 1 This is higher than the SDG target of reducing the cost to less than 3% and eliminating remittance corridors with costs higher than 5% by 2030.
Beyond costs, other challenges include lack of publicly available data that provide granular and gendered detail relating to size and value of remittance flows, channels used, both formal and informal, senders and recipients demographics and gender, usage of remittance receipts and other data points that would provide a wholesome picture of the remittance market in Kenya. While CBK publishes monthly data on diaspora remittances, it is aggregated, categorises the inflows as per three corridors: North America; Europe; and the rest of the world and only includes remittances sent through formal channels. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that there are large inflows of remittances through informal channels both into and from Kenya which by-pass the formal channels. Additionally, little is known about Kenya as a remittance-sending market.
The role of SACCOs in remittances
Both IFAD, SASRA and FSD recognise the potential role of SACCOs as significant players in the remittances market. There are currently over 500 SACCO pay points countrywide with some of the large SACCOs rivalling commercial banks in terms of asset size and capital base. Whilst SACCOs currently offer remittance services, it is through agency relationships with commercial banks and other PSPs, mainly FinTechs that leverage mobile money services. This is by design as SACCOs currently cannot participate directly in the national payments system and cannot handle forex transactions. The current arrangements have several limitations: (i) they create several intermediary layers which add costs to the transactions thus making it more expensive to the end consumers; (ii) the integrations through partners create multiple points which cause vulnerabilities in terms of system failures and cyber-attacks, and (iii) banks need to get approvals from CBK before partnering with SACCOs which in turn have to get an approval from their regulator, SASRA, before partnering, a burdensome process. These challenges limit the effectiveness of SACCOs as remittance providers. Addressing these challenges has the potential to:
a. Increase inclusive finance through efficient and effective transfers, including reduced costs.
b. Reduce the use of informal channels.
c. Increase networks into rural areas by linking remittances with the
financial services used by rural, low-income people such as women.
To get a better understanding of the current and potential role of SACCOs as remittance providers, it is imperative to first undertake a review and analysis of the market, policy and regulatory landscape to identify the constraints and opportunities in the remittances market and the SACCO sector and the potential intersections between the two. This would then generate market insights and policy recommendations to enhance the role of SACCOs as remittance providers. FSD Kenya through funding from IFAD and the support of SASRA seeks to recruit the services of two consultants to undertake the market research and analysis (market analyst) and the policy and regulatory review (regulatory consultant). This Terms of Reference is for the technical lead. The ideal candidate must have in depth understanding of Kenya’s financial sector landscape especially the SACCO sub-sector, the policy and regulatory environment and an understanding of the payments ecosystem in Kenya.
OBJECTIVE
To undertake an analysis of the remittances landscape in Kenya and examine the current and potential role of SACCOs as remittance providers from a market and commercial perspective.
for detailed Terms of reference click on the link below
How to apply
To Submit your application, click on the link below for submission details.