Move money in and out of Kenya
Collect dollars, pounds and euros abroad. Pay out to Kenyan bank accounts, M-PESA and PesaLink. One integration instead of two vendors and the seam between them.
For platforms that pay or collect in Kenya: remittance apps, marketplaces, payroll and contractor platforms, NGOs and treasury teams.
Lands in Kenya
Indicative rateKES 1,287,419.00
All-in cost 0.24%
How that is made up
- Transaction fee
- US$20.00
- Disbursement
- KES 500.00
- Rate used
- 1 USD = 129.05 KES
Indicative, and dated. The rate moves; a quote returns a locked rate and the moment it expires.
- Backed by Antler
- Signed requests, allowlisted IP addresses
- Payout destinations are read-only over the API
- Our rate is published live, and you can check it
OnLink is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided by our licensed banking partner, which is licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of Kenya.
One counterparty, dollar to shilling.
The same relationship carries the money the whole way, so there is one reconciliation at the end of it rather than two that have to agree.
- Collect
Take money in hard currency
Your payers send US dollars, pounds or euros the way they already pay at home. A webhook carries the amount, the currency and your own reference into your system as it arrives.
- Convert
Convert at a rate you can check
Conversion happens at OnLink’s published rate, which is on this page and behind a public endpoint. There is no separate desk and no rate agreed by message.
- Pay out
Land it on a Kenyan rail
Shillings settle to a bank account, an M-PESA or Airtel wallet, a paybill or till, or over PesaLink, RTGS or EFT. Your reference travels with the payment.
Kenya usually takes two providers.
One holds the hard currency and cannot reach a Kenyan wallet. The other reaches every Kenyan wallet and cannot open you a dollar account. The join between them is yours to build, run and reconcile.
Two vendors
- Two integrations, two sets of credentials, two support queues
- A wire in the middle, arriving on its own schedule
- An exchange rate set somewhere you cannot see
- Reconciliation across two ledgers that have to be made to agree
One counterparty
- One integration and one set of credentials
- No wire in the middle, because both ends are the same relationship
- A published rate, on this page and behind a public endpoint
- One reference, carried from the money arriving to the money landing
Where the money lands.
Three currencies in, eight Kenyan rails out, and the beneficiary decides which one they can receive on.
Money in
- US dollars
- Pounds sterling
- Euros
Money out
- Kenyan bank account
- M-PESA wallet
- Airtel Money wallet
- M-PESA paybill
- Till and BuyGoods
- PesaLink
- RTGS
- EFT
What it costs
One rate card, and it is on this page.
Most of this market quotes on request. Ours is published, it is the same card for everybody, and the calculator above works it out on your own numbers before you talk to anyone. We are paid the percentage below and a margin that sits inside the rate we quote; the Kenyan rail is charged at what it costs.
1.95%
Per transaction
The same percentage at every volume, with no monthly platform fee.
$20
And it stops there
The transaction fee is capped, so a large payment is charged like a large payment rather than as a percentage all the way up.
At cost
Disbursement
The Kenyan rail costs what it costs and we do not mark it up. The schedule is published, rail by rail.
A $5,000 payment costs $20 — four tenths of one per cent. Percentage-only pricing charges the full percentage all the way up.
Conversion happens at the rate shown on this page. The spread is inside that rate and differs by currency, which is why the calculator asks which one you are sending.
See the disbursement scheduleWhat people build on it.
Remittance and diaspora payments
Collect from senders abroad in their own currency and land the money on the recipient’s usual rail in Kenya.
Marketplace and platform collections
Take payment from customers outside Kenya, settle to Kenyan sellers, and keep one reference across both legs.
Payroll and contractor payouts
Pay a Kenyan team or contractor base from a dollar, pound or euro balance without a wire per person.
Grants, gratuities and community collections
Aggregate many small contributions abroad and disburse them in Kenya as one payout or many.
Start in the sandbox.
Read the documentation, take a sandbox credential, and make the first call before you talk to anyone here.
Signed requests
Every request carries a signature over its own body, so a captured request is useless and a replayed one is refused.
Webhooks you are told about
Signed, retried until you take them, and carrying an identifier you can deduplicate on.
Your reference, end to end
Attach your own invoice number or customer id. It comes back on every read and on the settlement notice.
Destinations are read-only
Payout destinations are registered with us. A credential can list them and pick one; it cannot add a new place for money to go.
Already settling in USDT? There is a separate API for stablecoin conversion into and out of shillings. See the stablecoin API
The licence question
We are applying and expect to be granted a licence. Kenyan law lets us keep operating while the application is decided.
The legal basis
The Virtual Asset Service Providers Regulations 2026 carry a transitional provision for businesses, like OnLink, that were already operating when the rules were published on 22 July 2026. Our licence application is in progress ahead of the 4 November 2026 deadline; no VASP authorisation has been granted to anyone in Kenya yet.
Questions we get asked
Get started
Take a sandbox credential.
Tell us where to send it. If you would rather talk it through first, choose that instead and we will come back to you.