Today, loan interest rates are capped at 14%, but what were they like twenty years ago? Here are excerpts from a  Weekly Review magazine issue from December 1997 a time of pre-election jitters, election financing, donor funding cutoffs, high inflation after Goldenberg, a depressed property market, and collapsing banks. This was after the move to streamline the sector through a universal banking law which led more financial institutions to convert into commercial banks, and later to merge.

Commercial bank base lending rates

24% 
Mashreq Bank
Habib Bank
25%
Development Bank
Kenya Commercial Bank
Equatorial Commercial Bank
Co-Op Merchant Bank
Credit Agricole Indosuez

26%
National Bank of Kenya
Fidelity Commercial Bank
Barclays Bank of Kenya
Investment & Mortgages Bank

27%
Consolidated Bank of Kenya
CFC Bank
Cooperative Bank
City Finance Bank
Habib A.G. Zurich
A.M. Bank
Chase Bank
Bank of Baroda
Habib African Bank
Standard Chartered Bank
Bank of India
First American Bank
Giro Bank

Interest rates, from a Weekly Review magazine, December 1997

28%
Citibank N.A.
Guardian Bank
Prudential Bank
Trust Bank
Paramount Bank
Commercial Bank of Africa
Stanbic Bank
ABN Amro Bank

29%
Universal Bank
African Banking Corporation
Biashara Bank
Prime Bank
Akiba Bank
Middle East Bank
Victoria Bank

30%
Transnational Bank
Imperial Bank
Bullion Bank
First National Fin. Bank
Daima Bank
Guilders Bank
National Industrial Credit Bank
Reliance Bank
Ari Bank Corporation
Credit Bank
Southern Credit Bank
Diamond Trust Bank
Delphis Bank
Fina Bank
Commerce Bank