Colonial Savings and Financial Inclusion in Kenya: The Post Office Savings Bank Dataset, 1909–1960"

This dataset compiles systematically extracted information from archival sources on the operation of the Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) and the broader banking infrastructure in colonial Kenya between approximately 1909 and 1960. The data are drawn from administrative records, official correspondence, financial reports, and legal documents held at the Kenya National Archives.

The database is structured across multiple sheets, each reflecting a distinct analytical dimension. Taken together, they document the development of colonial savings systems and their relationship to banking expansion, territorial access, patterns of use, and the legal frameworks governing financial practices. The dataset includes both quantitative variables—such as deposit and withdrawal amounts, number of accounts, and interest rates—and coded qualitative variables, including administrative constraints, access conditions, fraud risks, and institutional practices.

The dataset enables the analysis of the colonial savings system along several interrelated dimensions: (1) financial infrastructure, including branches and service points; (2) conditions of access, such as geographic distribution and mechanisms of outreach (e.g. mobile banking units); (3) actual usage patterns, reflected in deposit and withdrawal behaviour; and (4) the legal and institutional framework, which defined depositor rights, operational limits, and the allocation of financial risk.

Analytically, the dataset allows researchers to examine how financial inclusion in colonial Kenya was mediated by administrative constraints, spatial inequalities, and legal mechanisms that limited the effective integration of African savers. It also provides a basis for studying the relationship between local savings systems and imperial financial circuits, including the channelling of funds beyond the colony.

Overall, the dataset offers a structured empirical foundation for both quantitative and qualitative research on financial development, savings institutions, and inequality in colonial Africa.