NAIROBI, Kenya April 13-Troubled Spire bank has gotten some reprieve after a directive by the Finance and National Planning committee to give the lender more time to identify investors.
The committee chaired by Homa Bay MP Gladys Wanga directed the Central Bank of Kenya(CBK) and the SACCO Societies Regulatory Authority(SASRA) to give the lender adequate time to find strategic investors to inject capital into the bank.
If the report tabled on Tuesday is adopted, Spire bank will have three more months to find a buyer.
The directive follows a high court ruling in March which temporarily stopped the liquidation of Spire Bank which is fully owned by Mwalimu Sacco.
The sacco wanted to sell the bank to a local lender by the end of March.
Mwalimu has lost billions of shillings at Spire Bank forcing teachers to call for a stop of further losses by offloading the lender and withdrawing the Sacco letter of support.
Spire Bank has been desperate to shore up its capital after breaching all the minimum capital adequacy ratios set by CBK by large margins following years of erosion through losses.
The national teachers’ Sacco pumped Sh3.4 billion into the lender in January in a bid to stabilise it.
“We direct the Central Bank of Kenya to handle the issue of Spire Bank Limited as stipulated in the law and regulations taking into consideration interests of the teachers who are the Banks main shareholders,” the committee said.
CBK has been keen to evert any bank failure considering the banking sector is yet to recover from Imperial Bank and Chase Bank crashes witnessed in 2015 and 2016 respectively.