The government of Kenya has made it easy for Kenyans to access unclaimed assets. The relevant services are now decentralized, as the country’s more than 50 Huduma Centres will be helping with the process.
The Bureaucracy with Commercial Banks is Astounding!
However, there is more: remnants of money seated in customers’ dormant accounts of commercial banks. It is mindboggling how a commercial bank will call a customer tens or hundreds of kilometers away to visit the bank in person, to withdraw a thousand shillings or two from a dormant account. There must be easier and more convenient ways to get the money to the account holder.
Ordinarily, a customer cannot withdraw money from a dormant account; therefore, they must visit their branch to complete a form to reactivate the account. Of course, that bit of service comes at a fee of a few hundred shillings. Apparently, the bank does not want to forfeit that.
The Banks’ Rigidity Can Clog the Government System
Surprisingly, a bank cannot send a residual amount from a dormant account to the phone number it has already established belongs to the relevant customer. In Kenya, MPESA, Airtel Money, and other similar services make such transactions very convenient.
If a few hundred shillings lying in a customer’s account is part of what is sent to the government’s Unclaimed Assets account, there is surely a lot of fluff in there. Clearly, technology is only helpful when people have the right attitude towards it.