Members of the public advised to visit the Authority’s website www.ufaa.go.ke/COURTESY
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 28 – Institutions holding unclaimed financial assets have surrendered Sh2.58 billion and over 100 million units of abandoned shares more in the just concluded year 2018 compliance cycle, a preliminary report shows.
This brings the tally of abandoned assets being held by the Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority (UFAA) to Sh13 billion in cash and 555.5 million units of shares.
Additional 205 safe deposits boxes are now being held by UFAA bringing the total to 1,451 abandoned treasure troves.
The Unclaimed Financial Assets Act 2011, provides for remittance and delivery of abandoned assets to the Authority at the time of filing the report.
Institutions holding assets presumed abandoned are required by law to file reports and surrender assets on or before the first day of November of each year for the twelve-month period ending on the immediately preceding thirtieth day of June.
The assets reported ranges from unclaimed salaries and wages, royalties, unclaimed client moneys and loan credits. Others are dormant account balances, unclaimed repositories, unit trusts, dividends and matured insurance policies.
While releasing the report, Ag. CEO Caroline Chirchir said there is no deadline for claims on unclaimed financial assets held by the Authority.
She advised members of the public to visit the Authority’s website www.ufaa.go.ke or dial *361# (available on Safaricom in the interim basis) to search for status of unclaimed assets under their name, if any, and lodge a claim(s) as per the claim guidelines for reunification.
To date, 5871 claims amounting to Sh327.09 million have been lodged with UFAA.
UFAA has deployed a mobile accessibility platform based on Unstructured Supplementary Service Data technology to facilitate members of the public search whether they are listed on the unclaimed financial assets database.
The mobile platform is meant to deepen reunification by enabling mobile phone users interact with unclaimed financial assets database where list of apparent owners of reported unclaimed assets is published.
Owners and beneficiaries of unclaimed assets can thereafter lodge claims of their hitherto ‘lost’ assets being held by the Authority.
