As Kenya's digital economy grows, consumer protection has struggled to keep pace with the speed of new online buying and selling behaviour. Escrow services like LockPesa fill part of that gap.

Why this matters: Rather than waiting for formal consumer protection mechanisms to catch up, buyers and sellers can proactively protect themselves using escrow on a transaction-by-transaction basis.

1. Agree on terms. Buyer and seller settle on price, timeline and what completion looks like.

2. Fund the escrow. The buyer deposits the agreed amount into LockPesa, where it sits securely.

3. Deliver. The seller completes the work or ships the goods, knowing the funds are already secured.

4. Confirm. The buyer confirms the deal was completed as agreed.

5. Release. LockPesa releases the funds to the seller, or keeps them locked if a dispute is raised.

Before your next a transaction, particularly with someone you are dealing with for the first time, it is worth running it through LockPesa. The small extra step of using escrow can prevent a costly loss.

Escrow is not about assuming bad faith in the other party, most transactions complete smoothly without any issue at all. It is about removing the small but real chance of loss so both sides can commit to a deal fully, rather than hesitating out of caution.

As more Kenyans buy, sell and invest with people outside their immediate circle of family, friends and known contacts, having a simple, accessible way to protect those transactions matters more than ever, whether the amount involved is a few thousand shillings or several million.

If you have not used escrow before, consider starting with a smaller, lower-stakes transaction to get comfortable with how deposits, confirmations and releases work, before relying on it for a larger or more important deal.

A well-run escrow transaction also leaves both sides with something less obvious but equally valuable: a track record. Once a buyer and seller have completed one protected deal successfully, future transactions between them often move faster, sometimes even without escrow, because the trust has already been established through that first protected exchange.

This is one reason LockPesa is increasingly seen not as an extra hurdle, but as a normal, sensible first step for any transaction involving real money and a party you do not yet know well.