Chase Bank depositors can finally access their cash

Depositors read a notice placed at the entrance of one of the Chase Bank branches ahead of its re-opening today. [PHOTO:GIDEON MAUNDU/STANDARD]

KCB has dispatched at least 63 managers to man all Chase Bank branches that will open this morning after a three-week closure.

Chase Bank’s own branch managers have been relegated and will now be deputising the employees seconded from KCB, which has announced its intention to acquire a majority stake.

“We have been told that our managers will work below the KCB ones, but everything else will be as usual,” an employee told the Standard late yesterday evening.

The new arrangement will be replicated throughout the 62 branches of Chase Bank, while many more senior managers from KCB have been deployed to the headquarters in Riverside Drive, Nairobi.

By yesterday evening, optimistic Chase customers were already hanging around the lender's branches in the hope that they could withdraw some money.

Neither KCB nor Chase could confirm the new arrangements that had been envisioned by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) when it announced the revival of Chase last Wednesday.

CBK’s Kenya Deposit Insurance Corporation will remain as the overall receiver manager until KCB makes the acquisition in a transaction that would involve a fresh capital injection.

Senior KCB officials who spoke to The Standard confirmed that it is all-systems-go.

Among the final touches was sending cash to every branch to take care of any eventualities including mass withdrawals.

“We however, do not anticipate any abnormal levels of withdrawals, but we are well-prepared to handle whichever case,” a KCB manager said.

The reopening will offer major relief to thousands of Chase’s customers, whose lives may have been disrupted, through for a very short period compared to other collapsed banks.

KCB was optimistic that most customers would stay on, basing its enthusiasm on its own interactions with most of the bigger customers.

CBK announced that KCB was chosen to help revive Chase partly because it was Kenya's largest lender, and the fact that it beat eight other suitors who also presented bailout plans.

Going forward, KCB will be in a better place to weigh the likelihood of the customers staying, considering their anxiety after they were locked out of their bank accounts.

Customers will be allowed withdrawals of up to Sh1 million, while the rest of their monies will be paid out in a structured manner to be shared with customers as soon as is practicable.