NCBA Group, a banking group, has partnered with BasiGo, a Nairobi-based electric mobility company, to finance 1,000 electric vehicles, giving public transport operators, businesses, and institutions the option to buy or lease electric vans.
The financing will be provided through asset finance and leasing, with BasiGo using the arrangement to scale vehicle deployment to public service vehicle (PSV) Savings and Credit Cooperative Organisations (SACCOs), established transport operators and individual operators. The deal also makes NCBA BasiGo’s first local investor.
The partnership is part of the ambition to cut emissions from Kenya’s transport sector, where road transport accounts for more than 40% of the country’s total energy consumption and is its fastest-growing source of emissions. Kenya also spends over $5 billion annually on fuel imports, leaving its transport system exposed to volatile global fuel prices.
This has created the opportunity for electric mobility. Kenya’s EV market has grown rapidly in recent years, with the government saying the number of registered electric vehicles rose from 1,378 in 2022 to 39,324 in 2025. According to the Ministry of Roads and Transport, the growth has been supported by lower-priced EVs and financing options tailored to the sector.
“The transition to electric mobility is not simply about putting more electric vehicles on the road; it is about creating the financing and infrastructure needed to make them commercially viable at scale,” said Lennox Mugambi, Group Director, Asset Finance and Business Solutions at NCBA Group.
“By financing BasiGo’s electric vehicles, we are helping bridge this gap by connecting capital to clean mobility solutions and making sustainable assets more accessible to operators. Through this approach, we are supporting the wider electric mobility ecosystem and helping accelerate Kenya’s shift towards cleaner, more sustainable public transport.”
The partnership is another step towards BasiGo’s target of putting 1,000 electric buses on Kenya’s roads by 2027. At the time, the company had assembled 53 buses locally, with another 27 in production at its Thika assembly line, where it planned to increase output to 20 buses per month in 2026.
Kenya’s public transport system relies on informal matatus and other public service vehicles. Some of these operators are organised into professional SACCOs, financial cooperatives that enable members to pool savings and access credit.