NAIROBI (Reuters) -Kenya’s central bank has barred Ecobank from foreign exchange trading in the East African nation between March 29 and April 4 as part of regulatory action for unsafe trading practices, the regulator said on Monday.
Under Governor Patrick Njoroge, who was first appointed in 2015, the central bank has taken a hard line against several players in the market over the years, saying that discipline in the market was paramount.
“Ecobank did not have sufficiently robust risk controls to prevent breaches on its foreign exchange exposure limits, or the inaccurate reporting of its position,” the central bank said in a statement.
Ecobank Kenya, a unit of Togo-headquartered Ecobank Group, was not immediately available for comment.
Ecobank was required to put in place remedies to the lapses that were identified by an investigation, the central bank said, adding that it would also reverse the extra exposure resulting from the breach. It has up to the end of this month to do so.
“The remedial plan should also point to specific measures to address the unsafe trading practices that led to the non-compliance,” the central bank said.
(Reporting by George Obulutsa and Duncan Miriri; Editing by)
