Banking
Your bank is running 2026 requirements on 2010 infrastructure.
Regulatory compliance is tighter, digital competition is faster, and the systems most Kenyan banks depend on were built for a different era. We have delivered cloud migrations for multiple tier one banks, with zero downtime, and every transaction intact.
Kenya banking, by the numbers
The Challenge
Three pressures every bank CIO in Kenya is managing right now.
Legacy hardware holding the bank back
Most Kenyan banks run on servers and storage that were never built for digital banking. Hardware refresh cycles are slow and disruptive, and infrastructure sized for a fixed load strains under peak traffic and branch growth. Every new digital channel adds integration work on systems that were never built to extend such capability. The banks pulling ahead are moving customer-facing channels to the cloud, where they can scale with demand and stay reliable under load.
Innovation and generative AI moving faster than the bank can adopt it
Digitization is not a competitive edge anymore, it is the direction the entire industry is moving, driven by regulator expectations, customer behavior, and transaction volume no bank can process manually. Features like eKYC, real-time credit decisioning, and AML monitoring sit at the center of that shift. Banks still running these processes manually are building on a foundation that cannot support where banking is headed.
Applications built around internal process, not the customer
Most banking systems are built around how the back office operates, batch cycles, branch workflows, compliance checklists, not around what the customer actually needs. That shows up as friction at every touchpoint: slow onboarding, rigid products, support that cannot see the full picture. The banks winning market share design around the customer journey first and fit internal process to it, not the other way around.
"The banks that win the next decade will not be the largest. They will be the ones that move fastest, on infrastructure that does not slow them down."
Kenya Banking Sector Outlook
Why Now
CBK's 2023 guidelines changed what compliance means for every bank in Kenya.
In February 2024, Kenya was placed on the FATF grey list. The EU followed with its own high-risk designation. For every CBK-licensed bank, this is an existential pressure: correspondent banking relationships are under review, cross-border clearing is slower, and international counterparties are demanding proof that your AML controls, KYC processes, and transaction monitoring actually work. Banks that cannot demonstrate the quality of their controls at examiner pace are losing correspondent relationships they cannot easily replace.
Many banks in the region treat data residency as a reason to stay off cloud entirely. Tier one banks have moved past that position. The strategy is not full cloud migration. It is a deliberate split. The application layer goes to cloud: digital channels, AML monitoring, KYC workflows, fraud detection, and open banking APIs. That is where cloud delivers reliability, observability, and the speed to ship. Core banking stays on-premise where it is. The result is a bank that can move like a fintech on the outside while maintaining the controls regulators expect on the inside.
Kitsilano deploys and manages these solutions for tier one banks across the region, turning compliance from a manual burden into a competitive capability.
Client Proof
Delivered for a Tier One East African bank.
Zero Downtime
Full AWS migration completed without interrupting a single transaction, branch operation, or customer account.
35% Faster
Transaction processing speed increased 35% after migration to AWS-managed banking infrastructure.
20% Lower Costs
Infrastructure costs reduced 20% by replacing on-premise hardware with scalable, right-sized AWS compute.
Regulatory Aligned
Architecture built to regulatory requirements from the first design session, data residency, access controls, tested DR.
Multi-Country
Diamond Trust Bank operates across Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, all unified on one managed cloud platform.
Always Available
99.99% uptime SLA. Disaster recovery tested and documented. Compliance evidence available on demand.
What We Deliver
Eight capabilities purpose-built for financial institutions.
Cloud migration
Move banking applications to AWS without disrupting operations or any transactions.
Learn moreCore banking modernisation
Cloud-native core banking on Mambu or Tuum, scalable, API-first, and fully managed.
Learn moreAnti-money laundering
Automated transaction monitoring built to financial regulatory requirements with full audit trails.
Learn moreeKYC and identity verification
Onboard customers in minutes with biometric checks and real-time sanctions screening.
Learn moreObservability and monitoring
Full visibility across your cloud environment with real-time dashboards, alerting, and audit trails built for financial services.
Learn moreGenerative AI for banking
AI-powered document processing, customer intelligence, and internal tooling built on secure, compliant cloud infrastructure.
Learn moreData and customer analytics
Unify customer and transaction data into real-time dashboards that power credit decisioning, AML monitoring, and personalization.
Learn moreCustomer journey mapping
Map every touchpoint from onboarding to support, and design applications around the customer journey instead of internal process.
Learn moreHow It Works
From on-premise to cloud, without the risk.
Every banking migration is different. We start with your environment, your constraints, and your compliance obligations, and build a migration path that keeps everything running throughout.
Phase 1
Discovery and architecture design
We assess your current environment, application architecture, data flows, security controls, and compliance posture, and design a cloud architecture aligned to regulatory requirements before a single workload moves.
Phase 2
Live migration with zero disruption
Banking cannot go offline. We move workloads in parallel with your live environment using proven AWS migration tooling, validating each component before any cutover. Diamond Trust Bank completed their migration with zero downtime across every branch, every system, and every customer account.
Phase 3
Compliance and security hardening
After migration we apply the access controls, encryption, network segmentation, and monitoring required by CBK's guidelines. Every control is documented. Every policy is tested. The evidence your auditors need is ready before they ask for it.
Phase 4
Handover and capability transfer
We do not hand over code. We hand over capability. Your team receives structured training on every system we build, the architecture, the controls, the day-to-day operational runbooks. When we leave, your people can own it. Most vendors deliver a product. We deliver a team that knows how to run it.
Common Questions
Frequently asked questions
A typical bank cloud migration with Kitsilano takes three to six months depending on the number of systems and branches involved. We migrate in parallel with your live environment so operations continue without interruption throughout.
Kenya's placement on the FATF grey list in February 2024 means Kenyan banks face heightened scrutiny from international counterparties, slower correspondent banking approvals, and increased pressure to demonstrate the quality of AML controls and KYC processes. Banks that cannot produce clean compliance evidence quickly are at risk of losing correspondent relationships. Cloud-based AML monitoring and automated KYC workflows make it significantly easier to meet this standard.
Yes. Kitsilano completed Diamond Trust Bank's full AWS migration with zero downtime across every branch, every system, and every customer account. We run migrations in parallel with your live environment and only cut over after full validation.
Core banking modernisation is the process of replacing or extending a legacy core banking system with API-first, cloud-native infrastructure. Banks running systems from the early 2000s typically cannot support mobile banking, open APIs, or digital onboarding at the speed fintech competitors can. Modernisation closes that gap.
Get Started
Talk to our banking team
Leave your details and someone from our financial services team will reach out within one business day. We will start with your current infrastructure, your compliance gaps, and what a realistic path forward looks like.