Kenyans will get salaries in new generation notes this month, assures CBK governor

Kenyans will start withdrawing new generation currency from ATMs this week across the nation. According to a statement given by Patrick Njoroge, the governor of Central Bank of Kenya to the Parliament, the banks and ATMs have been reconfigured to dispense the new generation currency notes.

Elaborating on the process, Patrick Njoroge said that the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has already commenced filling ATMs in far-flung areas, including those in highly populated areas in major cities and towns across Kenya with the new-look currency notes.

Njoroge also assured that the Kenyans across Kenya will start withdrawing the new notes from ATMs and people will largely get their salaries in new banknotes from this month. “We are starting to feed the ATMs with new currency banknotes as we wean them of old generational currency,” he added.

According to CBK’s governor, the task of dispensing of new notes by the end of this week in most of the ATMs and counters will be finished, specially with the addition of new Sh1,000 note. “We are starting with ATMs in far-flung areas because they are often forgotten,” he added.

The move by Kenyan government is to curb counterfeiting and illicit financial flows that witnessed several cases of detention across the county in the last couple of months. With the introduction of new generation currency notes, the government expects to strategically deal with the emerging concerns about illicit financial flows and counterfeits.

Njoroge appeared before the committee chaired by Mvita MP Abdulswamad Nassir to answer queries on the bank’s financial statements. The committee wanted to know if pan-Kenya is confronting a shortage of new banknotes since several areas, including capital Nairobi, have recorded low circulation of the new currency.

“We released some new currency to test its acceptance across the country during the launch in June. We have enough new currency banknotes that we are going to release by end of this week through the ATMs and banking halls,” he cited. All the ATMs in Kenya will have new currency as the country moves towards the October 1, the demonetisation deadline of Sh1,000 note. On the other hand, Njoroge accepted in a media conversation that Kenya is facing shortage of circulation of the new notes since their introduction in June.

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