Is East Africa Ready for Open Finance?

East Africa is taking significant steps to address the complexities of regional financial integration: enhancing cross-border payment systems to make payments faster, cheaper, more transparent, inclusive, and safer. That matters for traders, migrant workers sending remittances, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), and for anyone who has ever had to pay too much or waited too long just to move money from one country to another. The Cross-border Payment Systems Masterplan – a strategic roadmap adopted in 2025 to make cross-border transactions across East Africa faster, cheaper, and more secure – is working to address exactly that.

As countries in the region scale the connectivity and interoperability of payment systems, they will have to decide how to manage and use the data being generated. Open finance enables consumers and businesses to share their financial data securely and with consent. An MSME, for example, could choose to share its transaction data with a lender to help demonstrate its cash flow when applying for credit. 

This makes it timely for East African countries to think collectively about open finance. This was also a central focus of a regional workshop in Mombasa in early 2026, where central bank representatives from all eight EAC Partner States convened to explore what open finance could mean for their countries and for the region as a whole.

Why sequencing matters

One of the most valuable aspects of the discussions was that they did not begin with, how do we implement open finance? They began with a more fundamental question: what are we trying to solve in our financial systems, and is data sharing the right tool for it? This framing reinforces an important point: each country needs to define its policy objectives for open finance based on its own market conditions and priorities. 

That distinction matters in East Africa because countries are not all starting from the same place. Some have already begun exploring open finance more directly, through readiness assessments, policy frameworks, or implementation planning. Others remain focused on more foundational priorities like payment infrastructure, digital financial inclusion, regulatory capacity, and in some cases, digital ID.

What does readiness actually mean?

Readiness is not simply about whether regulators are interested in open finance. CENFRI’s readiness assessment framework breaks it down into four pillars: policy and regulation, infrastructure, supply-side readiness, and demand-side readiness. In other words, is there a sound legal basis? Do the systems exist to support secure data exchange? Are providers capable of and incentivized to participate? And will consumers trust the system enough to use it?

Across the region, central bank representatives have surfaced a number of common constraints, including limited interoperability, uneven access to smartphones and the internet, persistent inclusion gaps, high service costs, low access to credit, regulatory gaps, and dominant market players. These factors will shape how open finance needs to be designed in order to create real value.

The consumer side matters just as much. If consumers do not see a clear benefit, cannot meaningfully understand or navigate consent, or do not trust the system, open finance risks remaining a technical framework rather than a practical solution that delivers tangible value to a broad base of consumers and businesses. There is also a risk that open finance could reinforce existing inequalities if it is designed primarily for digitally confident smartphone users. A system intended to advance inclusion may inadvertently widen the very gaps it seeks to address.

Regional coordination without uniformity

Regional coordination will be important if East African countries want open finance systems to work across borders over time. But coordination does not have to mean uniformity. In fact, forcing uniformity too early would be a mistake. Countries should be able to move according to their own market conditions, readiness, and policy priorities, while aligning on the areas where incompatibility could create problems later. This includes a legal and regulatory baseline, minimum standards on consent and liability, common API and security standards, and some form of regional technical coordination. 

For some countries, the next step may be a national readiness assessment or feasibility study. For others, where feasibility has been established, developing a detailed and tailored implementation plan may be the priority. And for others still, the smarter move may be to keep strengthening the foundations that would make future data sharing safer and more valuable. 

What matters is that the next step responds to a clearly identified need and reflects each country’s starting point. Ultimately, open finance in East Africa should not be driven by hype or by pressure to keep up with global trends. It should be driven by clear policy objectives, an honest assessment of readiness, and a regional approach that helps countries learn from each other.