The Central bank of Kenya (CBK) is advising members of the public against dealing with unlicensed and unregulated online money changers, warning that they stood the risk of losing their money to the illegal dealers.
In a notice posted on its website (www.centralbank.go.ke) and published in the print media, the financial services sector regulator said its attention had been drawn to the proliferation of such dealers in the market. CBK said the platforms were mostly downloadable on Google Play and Apple App Store and were being aggressively marketed through social media and mass emails as offering the best deals to prospective money changers.
However, they do not possess the requisite licences from the CBK or the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) as required by law and therefore lacked adequate anti-money laundering and consumer protection safeguards offered by the two regulatory authorities.
“The purpose of the notice is to warn members of the public against dealing with unlicensed and unregulated online forex dealers…they risk being defrauded and losing their money…” The CBK warned.
The regulator called on members of the public to forward any complaints about unlicensed forex dealers to the Banking Fraud Investigations Unit.
