You have until 5 pm on Monday to hand in any old 1000 shilling notes in your possession or else all that money will be turned into value-less paper this is according to CBK. 30th September deadline for exit of old KSh.1000 notes still remains and 91% of notes handed in for conversion were below KSh.2 million.
That’s the ultimatum issued by the Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya, DR. Patrick Njoroge, who has said the 30th September deadline for the withdrawal of the old 1000 shillings notes remains unchanged. The CBK has raised the alarm over an increase in cash purchases of wheat in Narok County that are suspected to be an attempt to sanitize dirty money.
In June, the Central Bank of Kenya issued new Kenyan currency notes and begun the process of withdrawing the old 1000 shillings note from circulation. According to CBK governor, DR. Patrick Njoroge, the demonetization process has gone on well as planned.
He says 58% of currency exchanged in value terms was less than 500,000 shillings, while 75% of currency was less than 1 million shillings. He further said that of the converted amounts, only 24 transactions were above 2 million shillings with an average of 3.1 million shillings per transaction – translating to about 74 point 4 million shillings worth of conversions to the new 1000 shillings note.
The CBK governor has however expressed concern over a spike in cash purchases of wheat in Narok that the banking sector regulator suspects could be an attempt to sanitize dirty cash. The CBK also wants all money held by courts as exhibits to be converted as well before the end of the deadline Dr Njoroge also said that they understood that there were court cases but if they failed to convert the exhibits will also be worthless and 30th September deadline for the withdrawal of the old 1000 shilling notes approaches, a number of businesses and traders have already indicated that they will nor accept the old notes starting September 25th.
Safaricom, for instance, said M-pesa shops would not be accepting the old notes after September 26. This is what the CBK governor had to say about the self-imposed deadlines.
And when asked about possible extension of the deadline…
As the September 30th deadline for demonetization of 1000 old note draws near CBK says the old notes will be invalid as from 5pm on the 30th and not midnight as some may assume. CBK has so far transacted 99% of the of the conversions.
