Accounts with more than Sh1 million make up just 0.81 per cent of all accounts The sector remains Kenya's largest source of domestic savings outside the banking sector, managing more than Sh832 billion in member funds. /FILE Nearly nine out of every 10 Kenyans with Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies accounts have deposits of Sh50,000 or less, equal to 89 per cent of the Sacco membership.
Of the estimated 15 million Sacco members in the country this equates to about 13.5 million with less than Sh50,000. In total an estimated 13.8 million are in the range of 100,000 and below The Sacco Societies Regulatory Authority (Sasra) latest disclosure shows that just about one in every 12 Kenyans with SACCO savings has accumulated more than Sh100,000 in deposits.
According to the regulator, regulated SACCOs managed 18.95 million deposit accounts holding Sh832.8 billion as of December 2025. Of these, 16.88 million accounts held less than Sh50,000, together accounting for just Sh45 billion, or 5.36 percent of the total deposits in the sector.
The data shows that 91.78 percent of all deposit accounts in regulated SACCOs hold balances of Sh100,000 or less, leaving just 8.22 percent with savings exceeding the six-figure mark. The findings came to the fore during SASRA's submissions to the National Assembly Trade Committee, in support of the proposed amendments to the Sacco Societies Act.
The amendments seek to protect member deposits to a tune of Sh100,000, which the regulator argues that the current deposit guarantee limit would fully protect the overwhelming majority of members if a deposit-taking SACCO were to collapse. "An assessment of deposit balance level of SACCO members indicates that majority of deposit accounts equivalent to 92 per cent operated by members holds account balances of Sh100,000 and below,"said Sasra in its submission.
This, it said, implies that a substantial number of deposit holders lie in the bracket of compensation limit and will be fully covered in the unlikely event of a failure.