Kenyan manufacturers, agribusinesses and other exporters will get a fresh route to dollar credit after the African Development Bank Group and Family Bank Limited signed a $10 million (about Sh1.3 billion) trade finance line of credit.
The facility lets Family Bank extend foreign-currency trade financing to eligible small and medium-sized enterprises and local corporates — including women-owned firms — that need to import goods, buy production inputs or expand into regional and international markets. Coverage spans manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare and renewable energy.
Closing a persistent forex gap
Many Kenyan firms still struggle to pay overseas suppliers on time because local banks are short of hard-currency trade lines. AfDB’s 2025 Trade Finance Report put the global trade finance gap at as much as $92 billion (about Sh11.9 trillion) in 2024, with SMEs among the hardest hit.
Under the agreement, Family Bank will on-lend the AfDB money to qualifying enterprises for genuine trade transactions that might otherwise stall for lack of credit. The partners also frame the deal as a way to deepen Kenya’s participation in African Continental Free Trade Area supply chains.
“A line of credit becomes meaningful only when it becomes a line of opportunity for a business. Through Family Bank’s local reach, we expect this facility to support enterprises that are producing, trading, creating jobs and strengthening Kenya’s value chains,” said Alex Mubiru, AfDB’s East Africa Director General, at a signing held at the Bank Group’s East Africa regional office.
Women-led MSMEs a focus
Family Bank said the facility backs its 2025–2029 strategy to grow tailored business lending, especially to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises owned or led by women. MSMEs already make up more than 80 per cent of the bank’s customer base.
“This facility strengthens our capacity to scale up lending to MSMEs, which form over 80 per cent of our customer base, while addressing financing gaps that continue to constrain business growth,” said Nancy Njau, Family Bank chief executive. “As a Bank, we are committed to ensuring that this financing translates into tangible opportunities for businesses and contributes meaningfully to inclusive economic growth.”
By routing hard-currency credit through a local lender rather than forcing firms to chase scarce letters of credit abroad, the AfDB–Family Bank line aims to keep production lines stocked and let Kenyan SMEs take orders they would previously have turned down.
Trade finance gaps bite hardest when a firm wins an export order or needs to restock imported packaging, spare parts or active ingredients and cannot open a letter of credit quickly enough. By putting AfDB dollars on Family Bank’s books, the partners are betting that a mid-sized Kenyan lender with a large MSME franchise can reach borrowers that never appear on the pipelines of larger international banks.
The signing was held at AfDB’s East Africa regional office. Neither side published the tenor, pricing or individual ticket sizes in the announcements carried by The Eastleigh Voice and allAfrica, so borrowers will learn the commercial terms when Family Bank opens the product window. What is clear is the policy intent: more forex for productive imports, more room for women-led firms, and a tighter link between Kenyan SMEs and continental trade rules under AfCFTA.
Sources: The Eastleigh Voice | allAfrica
Photo: Lewis Mutugi / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
