Kenya’s Capital Markets Authority is studying investment ratings for unit trust funds and their managers as collective investment schemes approach Sh1 trillion in assets under management.
As of June 30, 2026, 66 approved schemes housed 320 funds with Sh948.7 billion in assets and 4.14 million reported investors, Business Daily and TechTrendsKE reported. That is almost 17 times the Sh56.6 billion tracked in March 2018.
Why the regulator wants ratings
CMA chief executive Wycliffe Shamiah said the authority fields daily questions from savers who want to know whether a fund is safe or better than another, based on disclosures published by managers.
“On a daily basis, we are getting a lot of enquiries from investors on the disclosures made by fund managers, asking whether one fund is good or another is safe,” Shamiah said. He said looking to markets such as Nigeria, where money market funds must be rated, could help answer those questions.
The CMA has also cautioned some managers over marketing unrealistic returns. Ratings would sit alongside existing disclosure rules and would assess both the risk in a fund’s holdings and the capacity of the firm that runs it.
What would be rated
Fund ratings would look at the quality of underlying assets, default risk, swings in returns, currency exposure and how easily assets can be sold to meet withdrawals. Manager ratings would examine systems, people, governance and the track record of senior staff.
Special funds, which can take concentrated or complex exposures, would face tighter scrutiny of cash flows, liquidity and leverage. Absa secured approval for global multi-asset special funds in August, and Britam has launched funds targeting global equities and multi-asset exposure.
Money market funds, which invest mainly in cash and short-term instruments such as Treasury bills, remain the most popular category, though special funds, fixed-income, balanced and equity products have grown the menu.
Industry reaction
Agusto & Co, a pan-African rating agency, said fund and manager ratings could improve transparency. Fund Managers Association chief executive Fred Mburu welcomed voluntary ratings as a complement to managers’ own due diligence, not a substitute for it.
Kenya is weighing whether ratings should be compulsory, as in Nigeria for money market funds, or encouraged as an extra safeguard, as in the United States and European Union. Cost to fund managers, and whether charges would pass through to savers, will shape that choice.
South Africa’s collective investment schemes held assets valued at Sh35.8 trillion at the end of March 2026, Morocco Sh11.8 trillion and Egypt Sh1.08 trillion, according to figures cited in the reports. Crossing Sh1 trillion would still leave Kenya far smaller, but would underline how many ordinary investors now rely on these products.
Sources: Business Daily | TechTrendsKE
Photo: Tall Black / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
