THE DAY KENYANS DUG OUT THEIR CASH

August 1965 marks one of the most peculiar incidents in Kenya’s banking history. This is after Barclays Bank set foot in Lamu Island. As soon as the bank opened, residents rushed for their spades and started digging out their savings from pits underneath their homes. For centuries, the people of Lamu had been cut off from the mainland mainly by floods and had resorted to burying their money or stuffing it under their bedding, wrote the East African Standard (now The Standard).

Barclays was the first bank to dock there. “Out come Lamu’s savings,” screamed a headline on the August 6, 1965 edition. That day, clerks must have hurt their backs, because according to the paper, “a steady stream of people” kept them busy by depositing amounts ranging from a few shillings to several pounds. The area District Commissioner B.A Osundwa described it as one of the biggest phenomena to ever occur on the island, pointing out that some people were still in possession of old Abyssinian coins.

“There are even people on the island still hoarding the old Abyssinian Thalers (old silver coin currency) because they haven’t been able to bank them in the past,” he was quoted as saying.

Another unusual incident had also occurred in Northern Africa after the opening of a Barclays Bank branch. A herdsman turned up at the bank one morning with a sheared sheep to submit a strange cheque. On the sheep’s back he had written ‘cheque’ and astonishingly it was honoured. This peculiar case was being reminded to Mr J.B.K Russel, a Barclays Executive from Nairobi, by Somali tribesmen who had travelled to Garissa to witness the opening of the first Barclays branch office in North Eastern Kenya as captured in the East African Standard. This was in March 1965. Before then, money had to be flown in from Nairobi and would sometimes be collected by road from Thika.

To read the complete article, see:
The day Kenyans dug out cash to receive first bank (https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/business/article/2001247009/the-day-kenyans-dug-out-cash-to-receive-first-bank)

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