The Unclaimed Financial Assets (Amendment) Bill, 2024, has been introduced in the National Assembly. Sponsored by Kimani Ichung’wah, Leader of the Majority Party, seeks to make amendments to the principal act to accord claimants of assets more powers to make determinations on transferring of unclaimed assets
The Bill proposes to grant claimants of unclaimed assets the power to designate who receives their recovered funds. Currently, the Unclaimed Financial Assets Act limits payouts to the claimant themselves.
If enacted, claimants will be able to choose someone else to receive their recovered assets from the Unclaimed Financial Assets Trust Fund.
The Unclaimed Financial Assets (Amendment) Bill, 2024 reads “Where the Authority is satisfied that a person is the owner of all or part of the assets that became unclaimed assets and paid into the Fund, the Authority may pay out of the Fund to the owner or such other person as the owner may designate an amount equal to the value of those assets or part of those assets as the case may be.”
The Unclaimed Financial Assets Act of 2011 established the Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority (UFAA) and the Unclaimed Financial Assets Trust Fund. The UFAA is tasked with receiving unclaimed financial assets from various institutions, safeguarding them, and reuniting them with their rightful owners.
