The banking sector in Kenya has had a rough time keeping people’s money safe for some time now.
Apart from the theft by employees and the hacking of systems to steal money by cybercriminals. There’s something else happening in Kenya.
Thieves are becoming bold and have new ways of grabbing money from commercial banks.
Curious Case of Barclays Bank
Banks aren’t robbed like in the past.
These days, one requires a high-speed internet connection and a laptop to hack into systems and steal lots of money.
Banks are losing over 125 billion per year in this kind of theft (Report 2017).
Barclays Bank announced that it is leaving the African market sometimes in 2017.
That means that the name Barclays will not longer feature anywhere in the African Market.
ABSA, a bank from South Africa jumped on the chance to buy Barclays’s shares in Africa and have a controlling stake in the bank, including changing all of Barclays’s branches in Africa to ABSA.
But since then a couple of things have happened.
The bank has suffered scandals which were uncommon before.
First, the CEO Awori is said to have aided in money laundering of National Youth Services (NYS) stolen funds.
Secondly, the Kshs. 17 billion fake money scam, where the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) detectives found money and other valuables hidden in Barclays Bank Safe in Queensway Branch, Nairobi.
Thirdly, the over Kshs. 11 million theft from Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) in Nairobi.
The bottomline I say is, denting customer trust in this once best bank.
Barclays is one of those banks that withstood the economic collapse of 2008. Why? Better compliance systems.
But in recent years, the bank has fallen short of that glory as mentioned above in the three instances.
Who stands to benefit?
Media reports announced the planned merger of two banks, namely; Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA), and NIC Bank (and Jamii Bora Bank, which was acquired)
Today, the Competitions Authority of Kenya (CAK) has approved CBA and NIC merger.
The good thing is That CAK has also given a condition for the merger that, ‘no employee is declared redundant within a year of the transaction’.
The Kenyattas seek to control all the facets of Kenya’s economy.
They’ve succeeded in buying out competition in the milk sector.
Back to banks, the Kenyattas bought Jamii Bora for Kshs. 1.4 Billion.
The combined CBA, NIC and Jamii Bora business will rank as Kenya’s third-largest banking entity after KCB and Equity.
The three will have total assets of about Sh457 billion, rivalling KCB and Equity, which have assets of Sh684.1 billion and Sh560.3 billion respectively.
And with the stories surrounding how this family hijacked the first ‘huduma namba’which was then called Integrated population registration system (IPRS).
Integrated population registration system (IPRS), a one stop shop for all the population data. IPRS was to be the single source of truth for population of all Kenyan and foreign resident in Kenya.
This is the data the Kenyattas through Safaricom and CBA stole and used to create M-Shwari.
Airtel and Faulu bank stood no chance as the dreamers of such a loan lending initiative.
See, it is Faulu Bank and Airtel which had first thought about loan lending through mobile phones but Safaricom and CBA run away with it.
This current population collation system known as National Integrated Identity Management System (NIIMS) alias Huduma Namba (Huduma Number) will almost certainly be hijacked by these third largest bank too.
Problem is that these guys don’t have half a brain to think great things.
They have looted and plundered the economy to the extent that people are poor and desperate and are committing suicide more than ever before.
I don’t know where they’ll get people who will take loans or be able to repay them.
Or is this a scheme to swindle all Kenyans off their land.
See, Huduma Namba has a curious question on ownership of land on page 2.
Think about this.
I predict that Huduma Namba will be hijacked and used to give loans to Kenyans who will in turn use their land as collateral; in case you don’t pay, then the land legitimately now belongs to the Kenyattas through CBA, NIC and Jamii Bora.
This is it folks.
More
Mmekuwa mukisema eti waliiba shamba, sasa watachukua kwa njia ya mikopo na itakuwa yao halali.
