Statistics from the Central Bank of Kenya show that in August this year there were over 185,000 credit cards in Kenya. These cards were used in slightly above 106,000 transactions which carried a value of above KES 1 billion. This was an increase of over 66% from the KES 615 million that was transacted in January. Bankelele writes on why Gold cards have lost their sheen:

You can stop bragging or flashing your gold credit card now as you settle the bill at your favourite restaurant. Looking at this card comparison chart from Visa, it is now clear that having a gold card is getting lower in the hierarchy of cards to aim for after Infinite, Platinum and then Gold, that’s just above a Classic card . This was made clear when NIC launched platinum cards some months ago and the extensive benefits of the new card were listed..including some that were previously attached to gold.

The big change is airport lounge access which Priority Pass attach to Platinum cards, but not to gold cards – and it seems gold cards no longer entitle owners to use airport lounges e.g. at Nairobi or Kigali, but ‏reader, @smandavia says gold is still good at Mombasa airport.

Still it could also be following a global trend where the best that airports have to offer are reserved for passengers flying on first or business class, and those with enough accumulated miles  - regardless of what credit card they have. Curiously, Airtel  Africa premier customers also get access to airport lounges with Priority Pass.

Of interest to note is that the number of pre paid card transactions decreased from 4825 in January 2014 to 2735 in August. In addition, the value of these transactions reduced from KES 47 million to KES 35 million in the same period. Contrast this to the value of mobile money transactions that rose from KES 178 billion to KES 206 billion in the same time.

Clearly at the end of it all, the shift to cashless transactions in Kenya and indeed in most of sub-saharan Africa, will most likely take place over the mobile money medium. In light of the above, whatever card you carry in your wallet won't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

<Part of this article was adapted from bankele.co.ke, you can read the article here.>