It has been some months since Imperial Bank was closed down. To help the bank’s depositors get access to their money, three weeks ago, the Central Bank of Kenya provided eight billion shillings for withdrawals but shocking details have revealed that only 21 percent of the total depositors have come out to claim their money.
By the time of its closure, the bank had a total of 50,000 depositors according to its records but up to now only 10,600 depositors have claimed their cash through the Kenya Commercial Bank as well as through the Diamond Trust Bank.
These revelations has left economic experts as well as the CBK not sure of the true identity of the depositors to the bank. This is not the first incident facing troubled banks in the country. Dubai Bank for incidence, which had a total of 7,700 depositors in its records, saw only 561 people who came forward to claim their cash.
According to the statistics at the Central Bank of Kenya, by the month of September, the number of bank customer deposit accounts was 33.29 million. The loan accounts were seven million and this, according to the data, was an increase of 5.4 percent in the number of depositors from the initial 31.6 million by the month of June this year of 2015.
During the month of October, Imperial Bank was put under receivership and the Central Bank of Kenya made it possible min December for depositors to access up to 1 million shillings.
According to the CBK, the total number of Imperial Bank’s depositors who were to access their cash for up to a million through KCB and DBT was 44,300 who make up of 89 percent of the total number of the depositors.
The low turnout of depositors has raised eyebrows about the validity of Imperial Bank’s transactions as well as the true identity of its depositors.
Article by Juma Fred.