Local individual bond accounts at the Nairobi Securities Exchange quadrupled in the year to Q1 2026, with data from the NSE and Capital Markets Authority showing retail participation growing sharply as the secondary bond market posted its highest-ever turnover figures.
- •The individual bond accounts rose to 3,010 at the end of Q1 2026, up from 757 in Q1 2025 and well above the 550-to-824 range within which the category had been effectively trapped since Q1 2020.
- •The 297.6% year-on-year increase marks the sharpest single-year move in retail bond participation on record, ending sub 1000 years of negligible retail presence in Kenya's fixed income market.
- •The retail broadening has coincided with a surge in secondary bond market activity: 2025 bond turnover at the NSE closed at KSh 2.71 trillion, nearly double the KSh 1.34 trillion recorded in 2024 and more than four times the KSh 589.63 billion posted in 2023.
The broader bond investor base expanded to 3,640 accounts in Q1 2026 from 1,378 a year earlier, a 164.2% rise. The total now stands above the previous multi-year high of 2,702 recorded at Q1 2020, itself a level the market had failed to recover since a steep contraction in 2021 reduced the bond account base by half.
Growth across Q1 2026 cuts across multiple investor categories. Foreign individual investor bond accounts also rose to 39 from 23, a 69.6% increase. East African individual bond accounts climbed to seven from one, recovering to their Q1 2020 level.
Junior investor bond accounts registered at four, their first recorded appearance in the dataset. Local corporate bond accounts, representing the institutional core of the market, edged down to 577 from 594, a 2.9% decline, indicating the overall expansion is being driven entirely by retail and non-institutional segments.
| NSE bond investor accounts |
|---|
| Metric | Q1 2020 | Q1 2025 | Q1 2026 | YoY Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EACI (East African Corporate) | 1 | 0 | 0 | — |
| EAI (East African Individuals) | 7 | 1 | 7 | ▲+600.0% |
| FCI (Foreign Corporate) | 2 | 3 | 3 | — |
| FII (Foreign Individuals) | 34 | 23 | 39 | ▲+69.6% |
| JR (Junior Investors) | 0* | 0* | 4 | — |
| LCI (Local Corporate) | 1,998 | 594 | 577 | ▼-2.9% |
| LI (Local Individuals) | 660 | 757 | 3,010 | ▲+297.6% |
| Bond Total | 2,702 | 1,378 | 3,640 | ▲+164.2% |
*JR bond accounts not separately reported in early years; assumed zero.
The bond turnover acceleration has extended into 2026, with February posting a record KSh 417.03 billion in monthly turnover, the highest single-month figure on record, followed by KSh 366.18 billion in March, the second highest. Cumulative Q1 2026 bond turnover reached KSh 1.08 trillion, already equivalent to 39.8% of the full-year 2025 total.
Taken together, the two trends point to a bond market that is getting broader as it gets bigger. Historically dominated by institutional players including banks, pension funds, and insurance companies, Kenya's bond market had seen retail participation remain effectively static across six consecutive Q1 readings from 2020 through 2025. The simultaneous improvement in volume and participation breadth in Q1 2026 represents an early but meaningful shift.
