As @mlennyma is saying, Kenyans are a bloody lazy lot!!! Why don't you think of ways you can profitably deploy your money! Were you forced to put it in the bank??? You want to deposit your money in the bank let someone else do all the work and take all the risks and give you a risk free 7% as you sit on your lazy a$$??

Even the bank will not be able to make that much despite all the work and risks! Issue loans @ 14.5% and give you 7%?? Difference? 7.5%! Now subtract all the costs from rent to salaries to marketing to validation of security to following up defaulters etc. etc. What remains??

And to make matters worse, with inflation in Kenya being at 5.xy, it means banks will be doing absolute ZERO work - if not negative!!!

Finance and Economics should be made compulsory up to form 2 at least! Not that the issue at hand needs any advanced knowledge but the arguments show how badly we are doing in financial literacy. And this is Wazua. Wait until you go to the streets and villages and you hear the reasoning.

Reminds me when Kibera residents were told to pay "what the can afford" as rent. And as if that was not bad enough, one fellow appeared on TV saying "Tuliambiwa tulipe ile tunaweza afford. Ambapo ni bure!!!"

you cant just compare kenyan banks with banks in developed economies...It's like comparing a dick to an airport

I kid you not @Obi. Even when T Bills were at double digits, most Kenyans were too lazy to open an account and buy and left the money lying in a Bank account somewhere earning 2% then complain to whoever was willing to listen.

Let people think and put in some work - physical or mental - if they want to earn a coin.

Look at the bigger picture boss. The bigger picture is that GOK has the absolute prerogative to make laws regulating anything and everything within the constitution. If a bank doesn't like it, it can go do business elsewhere.

So after banks who will be regulate next, supermarkets. This thing will backfire big time. Let us wait and see.

Umegonga ndipo!!!

Who owes anyone alone. If loans are too expensive, "washana naye"!! If the bank is not paying you enough interest on your deposits, chukua pesa yako!!!

Problem solved!!!

I have always wondered, why lend to someone who is at high risk of default and then charge them a high interest rate and argue its because they are high risk. Defeats logic.

Interest rate controll will bring about economic growth. Many are the businesses that qualify for good loans but they do not borrow because the interest rates do not make economic sense. I believe the amount of business that banks forego by charging high rates is much much more than the the money lost in bad loans. Many are the individuals who are a good credit risk but will not dare touch a mortgage due to the high rates. If rates came down, such arguements like mortgage vs build would disappear. Mortgage accounts would suddenly increase, construction would pick up, SMEs will expand and soak in any jobs lost in banks right sizing and bankers will be forced to stop their very lazy approach to lending where they try to fit all borrowers into a mould.

Infact, the growth of mobile lending has adversly affected our economy. Banks would rathet lend to mama mboga type businesses via mobile and spread 1b sh across 2 million accounts at 5% a month than lend the same 1b to 100 SMEs, so they maintain the SME interest at very high levels to discourage borrowing. The SMEs are the engine to grow our economy while mama mboga will hardly ever break the ceiling to become an SME. This is economic sabotage!

This bill is good for Kenya. I doubt it will see the light of day though, mainly because of vested interests.

In India, which is a much bigger economy than ours, all essential commodities have a maximum retail price, regulated by government. This idea of free for all eonomics is a creation of Bretton woods during Moi's time and it has ruined us and only served to increase the rich - poor gap.

Here is a link to the 2015 Bank Supervision Annual Report

https://centralbank.go.k...pervision-annual-report

Banks made 61% of their income from interest on loans, 14.8% from GoK securities and 9% from fees and commissions. I can see why banks are anxious about the bill.....