Ipahco
A newer category covering platforms that sit between a saver and a licensed product — the app or menu you actually tap, as distinct from the fund or broker it connects you to.
It is the licence that makes buying a money market fund or a Treasury bond from a phone a regulated activity rather than an informal one, and the licensees include the mobile money operators as well as a number of fintechs.
You are probably already using one. What matters is knowing which is which: the platform is a channel, and the product you end up holding belongs to a fund manager or the government, not to the platform.
So there are two things to check, not one — that the platform is licensed, and that the underlying fund is on the register too.
The platform pays nothing. The return is the underlying product's, less any fee the platform charges on top — which is the question worth asking, because a convenient channel is sometimes a more expensive one.
Some of them, read from the register on 2 November 2026:
- Safaricom Plc
- Airtel Money Kenya Limited
- I&M Capital Limited
- Sycamore Capital Kenya Limited
How a share order actually reaches the NSE. You need one to buy anything listed.
A broker licence plus the corporate side — listings, rights issues, advisory.
Where bonds are actually traded — largely over the counter, largely by banks.
Futures on the NSE derivatives board. Leverage, and losses that are not capped at your deposit.
A forex broker that takes the other side of your trade itself.
A forex broker that passes your order out to the market instead of taking it on.
Licensed to sell coffee at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange, on behalf of growers.