There are very few major banks which are not represented along or off Kenyatta Avenue in Nairobi.
Let us count: Kenya Commercial Bank, Barclays Bank, Family Bank, National Bank, Equity Bank, Standard Chartered, Stanbic Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Housing Finance Corporation...
Then there are those slightly off the Avenue including Ecobank, Commercial Bank of Africa, NIC Bank, Consolidated Bank, Jamii Bora, and even Post Bank. How cometh? Indeed, you will zurura around Nairobi before you come across another swathe of road with so many banks back-to-back.
The story starts with the history of money in Kenya. Money came to Kenya with the construction of the Uganda Railway from 1892 to 1902. Over 30,000 Indian coolies — who introduced dukas, samosas, chapatis, chai and wines and spirits to Kenya — were shipped here since Kenya was not a country, but a geographical expression whose population was small and scattered.
In any case, there was no skilled labour unlike in India where the British Raj had ruled for 200 years and thus had a history of ‘industrialisation.’
The coolies needed to be paid. There was no currency in Kenya besides salt, cowrie shells. Add barter trade too. The Indian rupee came in handy. When the Uganda Railway reached Nairobi, payments were made at Kipande House which also served as a warehouse for railway equipment.
The National Bank of India opened shop along Kenyatta Avenue in 1986, and besides the coolies served traders at the Indian Bazaar, now Biashara Street. Four years later, the Standard Bank of South Africa pitched tent while the National Bank of South Africa merged with the Anglo-Egyptian Bank to form Barclays Bank in 1916.
It is instructive to note that Kenyatta Avenue at the time had the Stanley Hotel, today the Sarova Stanley, the Torr Hotel, where Stanbic Bank stands, while Pan Africa House and Westminister House (which host Standard Chartered and Family banks) were lodging quarters for administrators of the Imperial British East Africa Company, then headquartered along Moi Avenue.
The Bank of India House, then called Memorial Hall, was home to the Legislative Council, while Kipande House was where ID cards were issued and the reasons Kenyatta Avenue was important in the Kenya Colony. Kenyatta Avenue, being the only two-laned street in the city at the time, was thus busy and easy to access via rickshaws and horse carriages and these early banks found home in ready-made colonial houses where they have stuck to date!
Did you also know that when these banks started, miros never wore trousers, but shukas, hence the reason rupee coins had holes for hanging round the neck alongside the kipande?
