For 43% of young Kenyans, borrowing is no longer principally about buying a house, expanding a business or paying for an education. It is about getting through the month.
By Our Reporter
That is the uncomfortable finding in the Old Mutual Financial Wellness Monitor 2025. Among young Kenyans, 43% have borrowed to meet everyday expenses. Another 38% occasionally spend more than their monthly budgets. Rent, food, transport and school fees are among the pressures pushing them towards credit.
There is an odd contradiction here. The same generation remains remarkably hopeful about its financial future.
Among Kenyans aged 20 to 29, 83% have a positive outlook about their finances. Financial satisfaction rose from 34% in 2024 to 45% in 2025, while 42% said they earned more than they did a year earlier. Yet higher earnings have not eliminated the need to borrow for the basics.
More income, apparently, is not the same thing as enough income.
Nearly a quarter of young respondents, 24%, earn money from multiple sources, while 39% own or part-own a business. For some this is entrepreneurship. For others it is simply arithmetic: another income stream is needed to pay the rent, buy food, meet transport costs or settle school fees.
Old Mutual’s group head of marketing and communications, Annie Nibishaka, describes the phenomenon as evidence of adaptability, but sees a weakness beneath it.
“The growth of entrepreneurship and diversified income streams demonstrates strong adaptability. However, this progress needs to be matched by greater financial protection, emergency savings and long-term planning if it is to translate into sustainable financial security,” Nibishaka said.
The word matched is doing some work.
Young Kenyans are finding ways to increase their earnings. They are less successful at building the financial buffers that would make those earnings durable.
Credit fills part of the gap.
Mobile-money loans are the most common source of borrowing, accounting for 39% of credit among respondents. A further 26% have borrowed to buy stock or finance business activities.
The distinction matters.
Borrowing to buy stock may produce future income. Borrowing to buy food merely shifts today’s shortage into tomorrow’s repayment schedule.
That is not a small distinction in an economy where consumer prices are still rising. Kenya’s annual inflation rate reached 6.5% in July, up from 6.4% in June, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.
The savings figures are similarly revealing.
Ninety-seven per cent of young respondents have a savings goal. Starting or expanding a business, investing, paying children’s education costs, buying a home and building an emergency fund all feature among their ambitions. Yet only 36% say their savings could support them for more than three months after losing their income.
The aspiration is there.
The cushion is not.
Retirement is even further away. Only 26% are actively saving for it, while 79% are not confident that their eventual retirement savings will be sufficient.
This is a peculiar form of financial resilience: considerable optimism, several income streams and little certainty about what happens after the next shock.
Then there is gambling.
About 23% of young respondents participate in sports betting. Among those who bet, 55% say they do so in an attempt to make extra money. Four in ten young bettors report that gambling has caused them financial difficulties. (The Star)
The boundary between speculation and income generation can become thin when the monthly budget is already under strain.
Young-owned businesses have their own protection problem. Despite 39% of respondents owning or part-owning a business, 79% of those businesses are uninsured.
So the generation trying hardest to accumulate assets is also unusually exposed to losing them.
There is considerable demand for help. Some 78% of young working Kenyans say financial institutions should provide information and tools to improve their financial knowledge.
Banks and insurers will see an opportunity.
They should also see the warning.
Financial education can teach someone how to construct a budget, manage debt and save for retirement. It cannot make rent cheaper, food cheaper or irregular income more predictable.
Nor can another mobile loan create wealth merely by arriving five minutes before the electricity bill is due.
Kenya’s young workers are not short of ambition. They are short of margin.
That is a more difficult problem to solve.
