In a sad turn of events, Chase Bank has today been put under receivership by the Central Bank Of Kenya. CBK has appointed Kenya Deposit Insurance Corporation (KDIC) as a receiver for the bank for a period of 12 months. This comes a day after the bank restated their 2015 financial statements showing that they had understated loans to directors by a massive 8 billion.
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Though there were rumours to the effect that the bank was going to be closed, reassurances by the Governor had people thinking that all was well. While putting the bank under receivership, CBK invoked Section 43(2) of the Kenya Deposit Insurance Act, 2012 which requires CBK to appoint the KDIC as a receiver of a bank, if, among others, an unsafe or unsound condition to transact exists; a bank is likely to fail to meet its financial obligations; a bank has substantially insufficient capital or if there is a violation of any law or regulation.
This is a big blow to many customers myself included who have money tied in the bank without any notion as to when we will be able to access the funds. This will be the second time that the bank will be going into receivership after starting out as United Bank (Kenya), which had been put under receivership back in 1995.
Customers have been advised to call KDIC on Tel. No. 0770 887992 incase they have questions or they can contact them on email: kdiccommunications@depositinsurance.go.ke for more information.