Absa back to forex trade after CBK penalty

Absa Bank Kenya Thursday returned to foreign exchange market after being locked out by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) for a week over failure to observe anti-money-laundering rules on some trades.

The lender said in a statement that it had now resolved the concerns raised by the regulator last week Thursday.

CBK had halted Absa’s forex trading saying the lender breached “know your customer checks” in specific trades by failing to have satisfactory assurance of underlying commercial transactions.

Absa last week said it cancelled the suspect deals after CBK raised the alarm. The bank said the transactions were for global financial institutions, which the lender did not disclose.