By Enyichukwu Enemanna
As a means to shore up investment in the East African country, Kenyan lawmakers on Monday passed a bill to regulate digital assets such as cryptocurrency exchanges, wallet and token platforms.
“This is a landmark moment for Kenya’s financial ecosystem. It provides clarity, promotes innovation, and protects consumers from fraudulent digital schemes,” Chairman of the National Assembly committee on Finance and National Planning Committee, Kimani Kuria.
The enactment of Virtual Asset Service Providers Bill takes the place of a commission earlier considered to supervise digital assets. Kuria said it is aimed at addressing worries over the lack of clear regulations to govern the sector.
According to the lawmaker, the move puts Kenya ahead of other countries as the only African nations with laws to govern the digital assets industry. He said the law will be presented to President William Ruto for signing.
The act sets out the central bank as the licensing authority for issuance of stablecoins and other virtual assets, while the capital markets regulator will license those who wish to operate crypto exchanges and other trading platforms.
The legal clarity is expected to attract increased investments into the financial technology sector including from crypto exchanges like Binance and Coinbase, Kuria said, citing past conversations between those platforms and the government.
“We are hoping that Kenya can be now the gateway into Africa,” he said. “Most of the young people between 18 and 35 years of age are now using virtual assets for trading, settling payments and as a way of investment or doing business.”
He said with the law, Kenya has borrowed from established practices from other countries like the United States and Britain.
In Nigeria, the House of Representatives recently inaugurated an Ad-hoc Committee to review the regulations and security implications of the adoption of cryptocurrencies and Point-of-Sale operations.
