Three things QuickBooks can't do: deep native M-Pesa Daraja integration, KRA eTIMS compliance baked in, and a credit decision made on the books you have already kept. Plus pricing in shillings, at informal-sector economics — Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial.

No. M-Penny runs in a phone browser, so it needs a smartphone, and there is no USSD or feature-phone version — we would rather say so than have you dial a number that does not reach us. Two things still work on any phone: your customers pay you by M-Pesa exactly as they already do, and payment prompts and reminders reach a feature phone by SMS.

Everything travels over encrypted connections (HTTPS), and your ID number, KRA PIN and bank details are encrypted by M-Penny before they are stored. Your KRA PIN is indexed blind, so it is never stored in the clear. Your books are stored and processed in cloud data centres in Cape Town. Some services we use are based outside Africa, mostly in the United States — email delivery, Penny AI and video calls among them — and each receives only what it needs, under the safeguards of Kenya's Data Protection Act. Natcrest Holdings Company Ltd is registered with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, both as a data controller and as a data processor. Sign-ins, loan decisions, KRA filings and money paid out write to an append-only audit log, and M-Penny audits its own controls every day.

Credit applications are opening soon. Credit will be offered where your own records support it and a licensed lender is available for your account. Your books are the case: a limit is built from payments that actually came through M-Penny — not from your phone, and not from guesswork — so it grows as your bookkeeping does. Before you accept anything you are shown who the lender is, what the credit costs in total and how it will be repaid.

Credit applications are opening soon. When they open, a licensed lender — a bank, microfinance bank or SACCO — decides the amount, the term and the price, and you see the full cost before you accept. Repayment can move with your trade: a small share of the payments your customers make goes towards it, by an M-Pesa prompt you approve, straight into the lender's own account.

Natcrest Holdings Company Ltd (trading as M-Penny) is a Kenyan-incorporated fintech, founded by Emmanuel Meduwa — extensive first-hand experience in tax administration, CPA finalist (KASNEB), MBA, and currently pursuing a PhD in Accounting and Finance. We are building out a team across engineering, accounting and compliance as we grow.