Kenya’s Central bank, Bank of Mauritius moot collaboration on Cybersecurity

The Central Bank of Kenya and the Bank of Mauritius held a brainstorming session on Friday May 10, 2019, with a view to enhancing cooperation between the two central banks. Governor Dr Patrick Njoroge headed the delegation from the Central Bank of Kenya. Governor Yandraduth Googoolye led the discussion from the Bank of Mauritius perspective.

The central banks exchanged views on banking sector matters, fintech developments, AML/CFT issues, and challenges of relevance to Kenya and Mauritius.

They shared their experience on the current regulatory framework. The two institutions also closely examined areas of cooperation across a broad range of central banking issues where they can benefit from knowledge transfer.

These include the conduct of joint inspections and information sharing, reserves management, auction of government securities, payment systems and fintech. The holding of joint seminars on areas of mutual interest was also one of the key themes on the agenda.

Testimony to the strength of their collaboration, and the progress made during the discussions, the Bank of Mauritius and the Central Bank of Kenya will be meeting in the near future for another work session.

The two institutions are eagerly looking forward to jointly elaborating and implementing cybersecurity protocols as well as currency management systems.

At the end of the brainstorming session, Bank of Mauritius Governor Yandraduth Googoolye shared his appreciation regarding the spirit of close partnership between the Bank of Mauritius and the Central Bank of Kenya.

“This work session has enabled both central banks to fine tune and agree on a number of important elements for closer and stronger cooperation. This translates the cordial relationships that the Bank of Mauritius has been maintaining with the Central Bank of Kenya. It also underscores our respective ambitions to stand as beacons of central banking and governance in the region.”

For his part, Central Bank of Kenya Governor Dr Patrick Njoroge underlined the positive outcome of the brainstorming session. “I am delighted with the open discussion and really impressed by the range and depth of issues discussed. This level of cooperation will lead to improvements in the discharge of our respective mandates. We thank Governor Googoolye and the Bank of Mauritius for the warm hospitality and look forward to continued cooperation between our two institutions.”

Last week CBK Governor Dr. Patrick Njoroge has called on financial institutions including payment service providers to come up with inside threat programs akin to tactics used in the military forces if they are to fight the cybercrime menace.

“There has to be some sort of regular training programs in this regard, weather institutions’ staff are turning into key liabilities…therefore there is need to properly vet them on entry as well as awareness to mitigate the risk of cybercrimes,” he said Friday during the launch of this year’s annual KAA CHONJO initiative.

The initiative by Kenya Bankers Association (KBA) is a nationwide campaign aimed at promoting safe use of their online platforms by training Kenyans on ways of securing personal details when making transactions on their smartphones.

Cyber risk is any threat arising from a failure of an institution’s information technology systems resulting to financial loss, disruption of service, and or interference with business as usual or damage to the reputation of an institution.

The Central Bank of Kenya is also in the process of unveiling a guideline on cybersecurity for payments service providers, targeted towards safeguarding Kenya’s financial sector.

The guidelines’ purpose outline the minimum requirements that PSPs shall build upon in the development and implementation of strategies, policies, procedures and related activities aimed at mitigating cyber risk.

The move will among other factors create a safer and more secure cyberspace ‘that underpins information system security priorities, to promote stability of the Kenyan payment system sub-sector, establish a coordinated approach to the prevention and combating of cybercrime, as well as up calling the identification and protection of critical information infrastructure.’

Over the year’s cyber threats has remained a global threat with many companies playing victim to the worrying trend. The threat exposes many companies even with the most reputable and stable security features, institutions and co-operative societies to the risk losing billions of shillings with the banking sector most targeted industry followed by government institutions.

In Kenya for instance, by Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) shows that nearly all cyber threats and attacks that were detected between July and September last year went unresolved with the authority’s first quarter report for 2018/19 showing that the National Cybersecurity Centre detected 3.82 million cyber threats, which was a jump from 3.46 million the institution reported between April and June of 2018.

In May 2018 the Kenyan government signed the Computer and Cyber Crime Act into law this despite an existing law, the Information Communication Act and the Penal Code and its regulations already criminalized several cybercrimes. It could have instead been amended according to analysts to, for instance, increase the penalties for certain crimes. Kenya is a polarized country especially during election times.