A majority of Kenyans prefer to inject their money in businesses as compared to putting their cash in other investment avenues including farming, purchase of land, real estate and investing in stocks.
The State of Financial Services in Sub Saharan Africa authored by research firm GeoPoll which compares how youth in six different African countries save and invest their money portrays Kenyans as citizens willing to take their chances in new ventures as opposed to taking the easier route of dumping their money into low-risk asset classes.
Geopoll’s report shows that Kenyans have a huge appetite for starting their own businesses (53%) only beaten by Tanzanians (63%), followed by Uganda (45%) and Ghana (38%).
Nigerians (34%) and Ivory Coast citizens (26%) trail the East Africans and Ghanaians in trying their luck in the business world.
Farming is the second most popular way (47%) that Kenyans like to invest their money.
“When the results from the questions are analyzed as a whole, business investments and farming investments were the most popular forms of investment. An average of 42% across the countries studied reported investing in business, and the farming category was not far behind with a 34% average,” reads the report.
Land as an investment category is the third most preferred by Kenyans (19%) followed by real estate (8%).
The popularity of land as an asset could be informed by its attractiveness as a factor of production and its ability to appreciate in value over.
On the other hand, the low uptake of real estate as an investment avenue could be linked to slowdown in the sector since 2016 when the cap on interest rates which has now been lifted was introduced.
The report, however, comes as bad news for proponents of investment at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE).
According to the report, Kenyans are less enthusiastic about investing in stocks (9%) which is directly attributable to lack of a variety of investment options at the NSE.
