Old Mutual Kenya has launched a country-wide financial wellness drive aimed at giving small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and retail customers practical tools to navigate what has become an increasingly punishing economic environment. The initiative kicked off in Thika on 4 May 2026 and will move through Machakos, Nakuru, Eldoret, Kisumu, Nyeri, Meru, and Mombasa in week-long activations.
Each stop brings together Old Mutual’s financial advisors, business owners, and industry partners. Participants get hands-on training, financial literacy sessions, and what the insurer calls “personalised advisory clinics” covering savings, investment, debt management, and risk protection. Importantly, these are free.
The drive is anchored on findings from the Old Mutual Financial Wellness Monitor 2025, an annual survey of working Kenyans aged 20 to 59. The headline number is hopeful: roughly 70% of Kenyans say they are optimistic about their financial future. But scratch the surface and the numbers tell a more complicated story. According to coverage of the report by The Star, 71% of respondents listed income and job security as their top priority, 49% are actively cutting expenses, and 33% are focused on paying off debt.
Other findings from the Monitor are even more sobering. As Business Quest reported in March, 40% of Kenyans borrow to meet everyday expenses, 54% carry the same or higher debt than they did a year ago, and 46% regularly overspend their budgets. On the brighter side, banked savings jumped from 32% in 2024 to 51% in 2025, and 26% of working Kenyans now hold more than one job, up six points from the previous year.
That is the backdrop Old Mutual is responding to. “Across the country, we are seeing resilient entrepreneurs who are growing their incomes but still facing real financial pressure, from rising costs to inconsistent cash flows,” said Old Mutual Life Assurance Kenya Managing Director Martin Karenju in the announcement. “Through this initiative, we are moving beyond conversations to action.”
Tied to the drive is a public awareness push branded “There Will Be Signs”. The idea is simple but useful: most people drowning financially miss the early signals. Skipping savings contributions, rolling over short-term loans, dipping into business float to cover household bills. The campaign wants people to recognise these patterns before they harden into crises.
Why this matters now
The launch lands at a fragile moment for the Kenyan economy. The country’s public debt sits at around KES 11.5 trillion as of mid-2025, and the IMF still classifies Kenya as being at high risk of debt distress. Inflation has eased to roughly 4.1% in 2025 according to Cytonn’s macroeconomic review, but cost-of-living pressures, electricity tariffs, and fuel costs continue to bite. The Federation of Kenyan Employers has previously estimated that more than 190 jobs are lost daily as businesses cut costs.
We’ve already covered how Kenya’s cash flow crisis is hammering SMEs and individuals, with many small businesses scaling back, delaying expansion, or shutting down entirely. Initiatives like this one from Old Mutual, while obviously commercial in nature, do address a real gap. Financial literacy is not a luxury. For a household juggling a digital loan, school fees, and a side hustle, understanding the actual cost of credit can be the difference between staying afloat and sinking.
What to look out for
The activations are open to walk-ins. If you run a small business or simply want to understand your finances better, the advisory clinics are worth a stop. Bring your numbers. The more honest you are about cash flow, debt, and recurring expenses, the more useful the conversation will be.
Worth noting: Old Mutual is not the only player in this space. M-PESA and Microsoft have a parallel SME upskilling programme running across multiple African markets. Treat these initiatives as complementary, not competing.
The financial wellness drive forms part of Old Mutual’s wider financial inclusion push in Kenya, where the group has operated in some form for over a hundred years. Whether on-ground clinics translate into measurable improvement in financial behaviour is the harder question. The Monitor’s 2026 edition should tell us.
