Browsing: Central Bank of Kenya

The National Treasury is projecting real GDP growth of 6.0 per cent and 5.8 per cent for 2021 and 2022 respectively and has used the same as the basis for its revenue projections. But this adds to the overall optimism being projected.

In September 2021, the Central Bank of Kenya Governor projected a 6.1 per cent growth rate for 2021 and 5.6 per cent in 2022.

The International Monetary Fund’s most recent forecast puts 2022 growth expectations at 6.0 per cent. The World Bank, on the other hand, projects growth to print at 4.5 per cent and 4.7 per cent in 2021 and 2022 respectively.

We really believe this optimism being projected around is largely irrational and the story of Kenya’s economic growth still remains a puzzle to us. …

Microfinance institutions are trying to cope with the changing times as the market is moving to fast delivering digital systems of money transfer.

Chinese investors in lending apps

A couple of lending apps in Kenya cannot be mentioned without referring to Yahui Zhou, the chief executive of Kunlun Tech. Company Limited.

Zhou is famous for two things; his gaming company and his very expensive divorce settlement; he gave his ex-wife shares of Kunlun Tech worth US$1.1 billion.…

• Central Bank of Kenya has liquidated Imperial Bank of Kenya which was placed under receivership in October 2015
• The bank’s regulator said liquidation was the only feasible option, adding that it was acting in the interest of the general public
• Imperial Bank was placed under receivership, after CBK discovered massive fraud committed by its leadership through illegal deals, milking the bank at least KSh 34 billion

Kenya’s Central Bank has approved the complete shutting down of a bank that was placed under receivership five years ago.

On Thursday, December 6, Central Bank distributed a press release informing the general public that it was closing down Imperial Bank of Kenya Limited in Receivership (IBLIR) bank, seeing that it was the only feasible option.

The liquidation of Imperial Bank now sets the stage for the sale of its remaining assets.

After the bank went under, Central Bank placed it under the receivership …

SMBs share a similar technology adoption trend to SACCOs exposing them to Cybersecurity threats that are detrimental to their growing business.
Speaking during the launch of a cyber security sensitisation campaign, Dimension Data East and West Head of Managed Security Services Dr. Bright Mawudor said there’s a looming misconception that threat actors are only focusing on large enterprises yet small businesses equally possess sensitive data that is lucrative to attackers.…

Yet for SME and corporate lending, credit decisions remain an extended process as information is gathered manually and appraised over, sometimes, weeks, to establish the creditworthiness of the borrower.

The need to abandon such cumbersome processes has recently seen leading banks adopt technology, such as our CreditQuest, to automate credit origination, and manage credit workflow, appraisals, documents, customer ratings and credit decisions.

This kind of technology draws all current and historical credit data onto a unified platform, giving the bank’s analysts a true single customer view of credits and collaterals.…

East African countries have had a tough balancing act in 2020 as the Covid-19 situation oscillated from good to bad over and over again. This is reminiscent of the global situation where central banks have been forced to use high-level tuning and juggling to ensure their currencies don’t fall beyond repair. Even the US dollar, the main international currency has suffered repeatedly with Chinese Yuan and Euro pushing it against the wall. 

In East Africa, a tough monetary policy by the central banks has seen currencies remain stable though with significant losses. Kenya for example, has seen its shilling lose ground to the dollar by almost seven points. The Rwandan franc and Tanzanian shilling have survived the wave while the South Sudan pound has been hit hard. 

The East African region is primarily a traditional shilling zone that was introduced by the British rulers and used in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, …

In Africa’s metropolises, you don’t have to be rich to wear Gucci Armani or Prada, no sir, it is common place to see women in the slums carrying Dolce Gabbana handbags.

In fact there is a prominent saying across most all of Africa’s urban centres like Dar es Salaam and Nairobi “…everyone looks good in mtumba.”

Mtumba, is Swahili slang for second hand clothes, and Africa is one of the world’s leading importers of second hands, from caps, t-shirts and shirts, to pants and shorts all the way to bras and women underwear, yes second hand bras and underway are big business.

‘East Africa imported $151 million worth of used clothes and shoes in 2015, mostly from Europe and the U.S.’ And ‘At least 70 percent of donated garments end up in Africa’ – Oxfam.

What is strange here is that, Africa does not want to import these used items …

Kenya is heavily in debt; granted it is not the only East African country to find itself neck deep in debt but it certainly is the only one trying to raise the debt ceiling, every subsequent administration.

Last year, President Kenyatta appointed a new economist to lead the country’s National Treasury and just like his predecessor, his first order of business was to seek constitutional amendment so that the country could borrow more.

As of October 2019, Kenya’s legislators had been swayed to raise the country’s debt ceiling to USD 84.5 billion (Sh9 trillion). All is good when the money is flowing in, but when the roosters come home to roost and the cash flow takes an outward projector, the weight of it all starts to sink in.

That is where Kenya has found itself—smack in the middle of paying a whopping USD8.5 billion (Sh904.7 billion) in debt servicing. Even …

Once upon a time in Kenya, tea and coffee were the big players, the rulers of the country’s agribusiness the top foreign exchange earners.

However with time passing the crops contribution to annual earnings kept falling, because the farmers were simply not getting paid in time. The peasants’ payment was little and delayed.

As a result, production and quality of the coffee and tea out remained poor and could not earn the country its potential income from the sector.

Now the government has set aside USD15 million to revitalize the sector. The funding is from the World Bank which is meant to compliment another USD30 million that Kenya set aside back in January.

What is to be learnt here is not just the will to revitalize the coffee and tea sectors but also the willingness to admit what the problem was in the first place, slow and low payment of …

Central Bank of Kenya has cracked the whip against the Absa Bank in Kenya for failure to conduct proper tracing of the source of money in a flagged transaction in March 2020. Consequently,  the regulator has slapped the bank with a week- from Thursday, April 9 to Wednesday, April 15, 2020- suspension from trading in forex.

In a statement, CBK notes that this failure contravenes anti-money laundering regulations which stipulates adherence to the proper tracing of funds passing through the bank.

A statement by CBK reads, “In investigating these and other earlier transactions it is evident that Absa Kenya did not have a satisfactory assurance of the underlying commercial transactions supporting these trades, as is required, nor did the bank ensure the standard checks on anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) and know-your-customer (KYC) requirements were applied.”

Kenya has been keen to contain the flow of illicit …