Earlier this week, the Bank of Kenya announced the successful migration of the Kenya Electronic Payment and Settlement System (KEPSS) to the ISO20022 Global Messaging Standard.
This move marks the modernization of Kenya’s national payment systems, bringing numerous benefits in terms of speed, security, efficiency, and convenience for financial institutions across the country. The standardization provided by ISO20022 will enhance KEPSS’s ability to process international transactions and improve liquidity management.
KEPSS serves as Kenya’s Real-Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS), facilitating both regional and domestic payment transactions. From August 2023 to August 2024, KEPSS processed over 5.3 million local payments, amounting to more than Ksh. 45 trillion.
The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has indicated that the adoption of ISO20022 is part of their National Payments Strategy for 2022-2025, with plans to migrate the Cheque Clearing House to the same standard in the future.