A couple of years ago, foreign exchange trading in Kenya was seen as something done only by banks or institutional investors. However, things have changed as more people are getting into the retail market. Thousands of Kenyans are trying their best to have a piece of the vast currency pairs market.

The global forex trading market has seen a huge increase, growing by 28% since 2022. However, a good number of young people in Kenya previously treated forex trading as gambling, a perception that discourages people from seriously learning the ropes and long-term participation in the industry. Despite that, forex industry leaders, during a press briefing held on January 30, 2026, in Nairobi, urged more people to take up serious financial education.

So far, the country’s retail traders have been increasing at a significant rate, with more than 100,000 Kenyans committing to trading platforms. But the big question is, why has there been a surge in the Kenyan forex trading market in recent years?

The youths are on a roll

The Kenyan population pyramid is shaped like a rocket, wide at the base and full of potential. According to the National Council for Population and Development (NCPD), approximately 75% of the population is under the age of 35. With more than 800,000 school-leavers and graduates flooding the market every single year, and the formal job market only absorbing less than one-third, the others are thrown into the informal sector and gig hustles. And that’s how many youths are getting more into financial markets.

Forex trading is nowhere close to the physical trade ventures. Where you would require capital, necessary licences and other various overheads for starting and running brick-and-mortar trades, currency trading requires very little. With as little as a smartphone, internet and discipline, you are free to have a piece of the USD 9.6 trillion market.

With youth unemployment being on the rise, online trading offers a great alternative pathway.

Technological transformations are leading the charge

One of the things that is pushing the growth of forex is Kenya's telecommunication infrastructure. To start with, mobile phones are everywhere you look. By 2025, Kenya boasted at least 56 million active mobile subscriptions, with a population of approximately 52.4 million.

Now, with many people having smartphones, mobile money (led by Safaricom's M-Pesa) has become the backbone of all major transactions carried out in the country. In 2025, Safaricom reported approximately 37.9 million active M-Pesa users. Interestingly, this is even higher than the number of people who have subscribed to the mobile network (37.4 million).

The use of M-Pesa and other mobile money services, like Airtel Money and T-Kash, has lowered traditional barriers to entry into forex markets. What used to take banks even days to complete, and lots of formal documentation, can now be done with a few taps on a phone.

Now, brokers are integrating their platforms with various mobile money services. And mark you, doing so is working for their good. For example, an analysis by Business Daily Africa revealed that there was a significant difference between brokers who integrated their platforms with M-Pesa and those who did not. The ones who had M-Pesa integration experienced a 35% faster growth rate than their counterparts.

With this integration, traders are now able to start with minimal capital. The access has been opened! For example, some of the trading platforms offer account minimums as low as Ksh 1,300 (USD 10). In comparison, a physical business would need someone to use at least Ksh 500,000 for business management software or merchant accounts. Looking at the difference, the appeal is quite clear.

CMA licensing has boosted trust

Before Kenya started regulating the online forex trading market in 2017, there were already thousands of traders active. Many had accounts with offshore brokers, sent money overseas and worked with platforms that did not answer to any Kenyan authority. Even though this was not illegal, it was not safe. It is not once that you would hear about brokers disappearing and withdrawals being frozen. A Kenyan treader had nowhere to run to if something happened to them.

However, when the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) stepped in and came up with the Online Foreign Exchange Trading Regulations, there was a complete turning point. Kenya became the second country in Africa, after South Africa, to formally regulate the online CFD and forex trading market.

The thing with CMA licensing is that it reduces the avoidable risks. These include:

• •Fraud
• •Manipulation
• •Unreliable platforms
• •Unethical broker behaviour
• •Hidden pricing

If the regulator imposes stricter rules on brokers, traders know what they expect and are able to make more informed decisions.

You would think that regulation would slow things down as brokers and traders step back for a while to re-evaluate, but how wrong you would be! Since the 2017 regulations came into play, the industry grew by approximately 80% in trading volumes. Add that to the fact that more than 40,000 new traders joined the market. By the end of 2020, there were over 90,000 retail traders in the country, an impressive feat that is still going on.

As of 2026, the CMA has already granted at least 14 licences to online brokerage firms in the country. This means that more and more players are getting into the market. Interestingly, a 2024 report recorded that the forex retail market had grown by 200% in 2 years. But with the current economic situation and more people learning about the market, that number might just go up.