NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 11 – While inflation and other economic problems such as the Covid-19 pandemic may be seen as major challenges, former Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) Governor Patrick Njoroge says he had one big concern while running the apex bank that would literally keep him awake.
According to Njoroge, he was not as much bothered about inflation as he was about the running of the Kenya Electronic Payment and Settlement System (KEPSS), the national Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system operated by CBK.
KEPSS handles large-value and time-critical wholesale financial transactions between banks and other institutions.
“One of the things that maybe you could say would keep me awake at night. There wasn’t so much inflation and things like that. It was will the systems turn on the next morning,” Njoroge said while being interviewed on the CBK’s former Governors Series.
“For instance, if you think of KEPSS caps was the version we had I think the limit was something like 40,000 transactions per day. We were already at 20,000 something transactions maybe even 30,000 transactions per day.”
Njoroge said maintaining the system required trained staff with the right skills, as well as modern systems and processes.
“In order to do that you need to train staff you need to have the right staff and also the right skills in that space but this cuts across the whole uh bank bringing up the systems and processes to the 21st century to be world class.”
He said modernising the systems was not optional because any major failure could have far-reaching consequences for the country.
“I don’t think there was an option in this there’s absolutely no option. It was a do or die thing as I say. Some of these things if they broke and the thing didn’t work in the morning then entire country will go down.”
