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Be warned! M-Pesa shops will not accept old Sh1,000 notes from Thursday

By Hilary Kimuyu September 23rd, 2019 1 min read

Safaricom shops and agents will from Thursday stop accepting the old Sh1,000 banknotes, four days before the September 30 deadline set by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK).

In a communication to all their regional outlets on Saturday, the company said that they will not accept the old notes after September 26, “to allow us bank in time.”

After September 30, all the old generation Sh1,000 banknotes will be worthless.

Two weeks ago, CBK said there are enough new generation notes in circulation, urging Kenyans to take advantage of the deadline to replace the old notes.

The new generation notes were launched on June 1, 2019 during the 56th Madaraka Day celebrations in Narok.

The introduction of the new banknotes was meant to deal with the multi-billion shillings fake currency business in Kenya and across the region.

DEMONETIZED

While the old Sh1,000 notes will be demonetized by October 1, CBK Governor Patrick Njoroge said the old Sh50, Sh100, Sh200 and Sh500 notes will be gradually phased out.

Since last month, CBK has been on a countrywide sensitization campaign ahead of September 30 deadline for the demonetization of the old-generation Sh1,000 banknotes.

According to the CBK, about 100 million pieces of the old Sh1,000 notes had been returned to the CBK by end of August, which translates to about 50 per cent of old Sh1,000 in circulation.