Co-operative Bank of Kenya has won the lucrative deal to keep the more than Sh100 billion in pension contributions held by the Public Service Superannuation Scheme (PSSS).
The lender will handle the cash alongside NCBA Bank and Stanbic Bank.
The PSSS disclosed the three banks pipped eight other rival registered custodians of pension funds to the deal and will now handle billions collected from more than 350,000 civil servants, including police officers and teachers who started contributing to their own pension savings scheme in 2021.
“For now, we have a clear roadmap and have already done contracts with a fund manager, three custodians, and a fund administrator.
“This has been done through a competitive process with the contracts being awarded through the scheme trustees. All we are doing on our part is to monitor that each party is playing its role,” said PSSS chief executive Jonah Aiyabei.
The three banks beat Bank of Africa, Equity, I&M, KCB, the National Bank of Kenya, Prime Bank, SBM, and Standard Chartered who are registered custodians of pension banks as of 2020. All the 11 banks had been in a heated race for lucrative contracts to keep the contributions, which began in January 2021.
A work plan by the Treasury showed that the custodian banks will carry out the services for three years renewable on expiry by mutual agreement for a further period of three years depending on performance.