South African lender FirstRand Group, the biggest bank in Africa by market value, sees Kenya’s ongoing increase in minimum capital requirements as an opportunity to enter the market.
- •The Johannesburg-based lender has ran a representative office in Kenya since November 2011.
- •As of August 2025, FirstRand has a market cap of US$24.8 billion (ZAR 437.09 billion).
- •The group operates banking, insurance and investment products and services in eight markets on the continent, and three outside the continent including India and the United Kingdom.
“We’d like to go to Kenya. They have increased capital requirements significantly, and not even because of Basel III, but just because that’s what you can do when you want to drive consolidation, so hopefully we’ve got an opportunity there,” FirstRand CEO Mary Vilakazi said, according to Bloomberg.
The financial services provider owns subsidiaries including First National Bank, Rand Merchant Bank, WesBank, Ashburton Investments in addition to significant stakes in RMB Morgan Stanley, RMB Private Equity and others.
The increased capital requirements are expected to force a reshaping of the Kenyan banking sector. Central Bank of Kenya data shows that by 2023, only 14 out of 39 commercial banks would have met the threshold. The rest will have to bridge the capital group through various means, including seeking new investments, retaining earnings, or seeking mergers and acquisitions.
“These deals can achieve economies of scale, expand market share, and provide entry routes for foreign players seeking well-aligned business models or complementary customer bases,” Nicasio Karani Migwi, General Manager-Special Projects and Bank Economist at Equity Group, recently wrote in an op-ed on The Kenyan Wall Street.
“Local banks may also be incentivised, either competitively or through regulatory persuasion, to acquire key targets and preempt entry by well-capitalized multinationals. Regulators would have to balance this though, since mergers and acquisitions with foreign lenders could help diversify home market sovereign credit risk.”
In addition to seeking new opportunities, FirstRand is seeking to scale its operations in Zambia and Ghana as it seeks to diversify its revenue sources.
FirstRand’s largest competitor, Standard Bank Group, which is the biggest bank on the continent by assets, already has a presence in Kenya through Stanbic Bank Kenya.
