The Challenges of Banking Sector Reform and Consolidation In Kenya ABSTRACT Banking reforms has been an on-going phenomenon in Kenya financial sector. It has however, recently been intensified due to forces of globalization, which are guiding the integration of world’s financial markets and economy. Banking reforms have resulted from deliberate policy response to correct perceived or impending banking sector crisis and subsequent failure. This work investigates the implication and challenges of banking sector reform in Kenya financial system, found out the prospect and the performance of banks after reforms are implemented, determine whether reforms have achieved its aim of strengthening the capital base of banks, and providing a healthy competitive environment among banks. Questionnaires were administered to two hundred randomly selected individuals of the selected banks in Kisii, Nyamira and Kisii local Government areas, the collected data were analyzed. The results showed that banking reforms in Kenya have significantly improved the performance of the services provided in the industry, and that the challenges of banking sector reforms in Kenya will grantee its successful future operations. The study also indicated that banking sector reform in Kenya have significantly strengthen a healthy competition in the industry. However, the respondents reflect that they have encountered operational problems of the system integration, computer and most of these problems include problems of the system integration, computer failure, power failure, crash programmes and policy differences. Thus, the work recommended that Kenya banks should improve on the efficiency of the operation and also the policy makers should give more time to banks that have failed to meet up with the implementation exercise due to time factor to readjust. Also government should always interfere to solve the problem of unemployment believed to have been caused by the banking reform. Similarly, for smooth running of the operation of the banking sector in the reforms and consolidation era, banks should be given adequate training to meet the expectation.