CBK delays decision on Imperial Bank by three months

Imperial bank shareholders will have to wait a little bit longer to know the fate of their bank. This comes as the central bank of Kenya extended the period for carrying out a forensic audit on the bank by three months.

The bank was expected to give its verdict on the next course of action by the March 31.

According to the regulator, the forensic audit had identified 700 accounts it considers being of interest that require more time to be audited. The regulator is also unraveling intricate connections between the accounts that had been used to siphon money out of the bank.

“For instance, over 700 accounts-of-interest have now been isolated for scrutiny, with some of them connected to a few dozen related accounts, while initial expectations were that there would be a few dozen accounts-of-interest; some 22,520 high-priority transactions need to be investigated,” the CBK said.

Earlier in March, the Bank of Uganda sold the 58.6 percent stake held in imperial Bank Uganda to Tanzania’s Exim Bank for Sh689 million.

Imperial Bank was placed under receivership on October 13 following the discovery of a Sh38 billion fraud scheme that had existed at the bank.

In December, the central bank appointed the Kenya Commercial Bank and Diamond Trust Bank to pay depositors up to Sh1 million of their money held in the bank. So far an estimated 39,860 depositors have been paid an amount totalling Sh6.8 billion

Through Kenya Commercial Bank and Diamond Trust Bank, depositors have been paid up to Sh6.8 billion.

The Central Bank is set to meet depositors on April 1 to apprise them of the new developments.

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