Kenya’s unclaimed financial assets fund has grown by 8.41 percent (Sh10 billion) in eight months, reflecting a growing trend of citizens losing track of their wealth, as holding companies ramped up reporting compliance to avoid a 25 percent financial penalty.
Latest disclosures by the Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority (Ufaa) show the value of abandoned wealth remitted to the State-owned agency to date surged by Sh9.7 billion to Sh125 billion from Sh115.03 billion in December 2025.
However, only Sh3.12 billion, equivalent to 2.49 percent of the total unclaimed assets remitted (Sh125 billion), has been reunited to the beneficial owners.
Section 33 of the Unclaimed Financial Assets Act (2011) provides that failure to report and surrender qualifying unclaimed financial assets by November 1 of each year attracts penalties and sanctions of 25 percent of the unclaimed financial assets held.
In addition, failure of a holder to willingly and fully report any unclaimed financial assets under their custody renders them liable for a penalty of Sh7,000, but not more than Sh50,000 for each day the report is held.
These dormant assets include forgotten wealth comprising idle bank accounts, uncollected insurance payouts, abandoned shares and dividends, and dormant mobile money accounts.
Faced with heavy penalties for holding onto dormant accounts, commercial banks, listed companies, insurance firms, and telecommunication companies have accelerated their reporting and remittance of the dormant assets.
Ufaa began receiving unclaimed financial assets from holders in 2014 and reuniting them with beneficiaries in 2016.
However, the Auditor General, in a report dated August 2025, says the rate of unification is still significantly low.
Ufaa has lined up a raft of policy changes, including easing penalties and extending the dormancy period, in a bid to mop up idle resources in the country.
The authority is seeking to extend the time listed companies and saccos have to look for the rightful owners of dividends by two years before such assets can be declared abandoned and handed over to the agency.
The Unclaimed Financial Assets (Amendment) Bill proposes that shares and dividends be presumed abandoned after five years, up from the current three years.
Dividends are deemed abandoned when payouts fail to reach intended owners due to outdated contact details, uncashed physical cheques, or inactive bank accounts.
Listed firms and saccos will now have more time to locate the owners of the financial assets before turning them over to Ufaa which has an even harder task of identifying the investors whose details it gets from third parties.
As of June this year, listed companies had submitted Sh5.3 billion to the authority, leaving more than Sh8.5 billion in unclaimed dividends in their books. Saccos had remitted Sh160 million to the authority, leaving them holding Sh16.5 billion worth of unclaimed dividends.
Ufaa is also looking to soften penalties levied on companies that have idle resources in their books to encourage them to voluntarily submit what they are holding.
The Bill proposes a penalty of 25 percent of the value of unremitted assets, a departure from the current law, which has three types of penalties.
Non-compliant companies are charged 25 percent of the unsurrendered unclaimed assets and are levied a penalty of between Sh7,000 and Sh50,000 for each day that the assets stayed before being submitted.
An interest of one percent per month is also charged on the unclaimed assets based on the assumption that the resources were earning the company a return.
Executives of the non-remitting company can also be penalised with a sum of up to Sh 1 million for the non-remittance and could be imprisoned for a period not exceeding a year.
A survey conducted last year showed unclaimed assets valued at Sh394.9 billion are yet to be remitted to Ufaa, which has only received Sh125 billion in shares and cash.
Commercial banks are said to hold the largest share of unremitted assets, at Sh133.8 billion. The manufacturing sector holds Sh24.2 billion in unremitted wages, according to the survey, while universities have Sh8.3 billion associated with caution money deposited with the institutions by first-year students.