The US Embassy has officially stated that it will not accept new Kenyan banknotes for payment of services like Visa fees until new procedures are in place to accept them. Only the older version of currency notes will be accepted as of now. The Embassy has not yet disclosed when they will start accepting the new notes or what new acceptance procedures it is working on. Payment will also be accepted via credit cards.

The new notes were introduced for circulation from 1st June. The older versions of smaller denominations will continue to circulate along with the new versions. However, the older 1,000 shilling note will be demonetised on 1st October. ATMs and cash counting machines will have to be upgraded so that they can identify the new notes which are smaller in size and have different features. The Central Bank has taken this step to curb black money, illegal transactions and counterfeiting activities.

83 per cent, 5.9 per cent, 4.2 per cent, 4.8 per cent and 1.9 per cent of all the banknotes in circulation were of the denomination Sh1,000, Sh500, Sh200, Sh100 and Sh50, respectively. The Government will also ban Sh1,000 banknotes which are widely accepted in other African countries.

Image Courtesy: The Central Bank of Kenya