Crack down harder on money laundering

I gather that the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has issued a circular giving commercial banks six months to open and declare contents of all safe deposit boxes in their custody and on behalf of their customers. It is one of the boldest attempts by the regulator to deal with one of the weakest links in the country’s anti-money laundering laws.

We still remember the outrage in March last year when it emerged that criminal elements had concealed $20 million worth of fake currency notes in a safe deposit box kept in Barclays Bank of Kenya’s Queensway Branch. That episode was indeed a wake-up call for regulatory authorities when it became clear that safe deposit boxes were one of the darkest black holes in our national payment systems.