Financial Reporting Centre Kenya: AML Reporting Obligations for Businesses

The Financial Reporting Centre Kenya (FRC) is the country’s financial intelligence unit. It receives suspicious transaction reports and cash transaction reports from businesses that the Proceeds of Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2009 (POCAMLA) calls reporting institutions, analyses them and passes intelligence to law enforcement. If your business is a reporting institution, you must register with the Centre, keep specified records, have internal reporting procedures and report suspicious activity on a short deadline. This guide sets out those duties as the Act now reads and the penalties for failing to meet them.

The Financial Reporting Centre Kenya and its legal basis

Section 21 of POCAMLA establishes the Financial Reporting Centre. The Centre is created by POCAMLA itself and not by a separate statute. The Centre receives reports under section 44, and its functions and powers are set out in section 24. Supervision of reporting institutions is allocated by section 36A, and sector regulators such as the Central Bank, the Insurance Regulatory Authority, the Capital Markets Authority and the Law Society of Kenya play a role depending on the type of institution.

Who is a reporting institution

POCAMLA applies to financial institutions and to designated non-financial businesses and professions, including dealers in precious metals and stones, real estate agents, lawyers, accountants and trust and company service providers. The exact list, and the circumstances in which each category is caught, are set in the Act and its schedules, which have been amended several times, including by Act No. 10 of 2023 and Act No. 6 of 2025. Do not rely on a summary: check the current text against your business activity before concluding you are in or out. Virtual asset service providers are now also regulated under the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act, 2025; see our guide to Kenya’s virtual asset licensing regime.

Registration with the Financial Reporting Centre Kenya

Section 47A requires every reporting institution to register with the Centre within the period and in the manner the Centre prescribes, with the particulars it requires. The Centre keeps a register of reporting institutions. A change in the registered particulars must be notified to the Centre in writing within ninety days of the change. Section 47A also provides consequences for failing to register, so registration should be treated as a first-day compliance step.

Suspicious transaction reports

Section 44(1) requires a reporting institution to monitor on an ongoing basis complex, unusual, suspicious and large transactions, completed or not. Under section 44(2), once there is suspicion that a transaction or activity could be related to money laundering, terrorism financing, proliferation financing or proceeds of crime, the institution must report it to the Centre in the specified manner within two days after the suspicion arose. Section 44(3) extends the duty to attempted transactions. A report must be accompanied by the documents directly relevant to the suspicion and the grounds for it.

Lawyers, notaries and other independent legal professionals have a special route. Section 44(3) lets them submit reports through the Law Society of Kenya, and sections 44(3A) and (3B) relieve them of the duty to report where the information was obtained subject to professional secrecy or legal professional privilege, for example in ascertaining a client’s legal position or in defending or representing the client in proceedings.

Cash transaction reports

Section 44(6) requires a reporting institution to file reports on all cash transactions equivalent to or exceeding the amount in the Fourth Schedule, whether or not they look suspicious. The Fourth Schedule sets the threshold at US$15,000 or its equivalent in any other currency.

Internal controls and record keeping

Section 47 requires internal controls and internal reporting procedures: the institution must identify the person to whom employees report suspicion, give that person access to relevant information and require them to report under section 44(2) where there is a sufficient basis. Section 46 requires records of all domestic and international transactions, and a record of the evidence of identity obtained. Under section 46(4) those records must be kept for at least seven years, or any longer period the Centre requires in writing, from the date the business or transaction was completed or the account or relationship ended, and be made available to competent authorities on a timely basis.

Tipping off and enforcement

Section 8 makes it an offence for a person who knows, or ought reasonably to know, that a report is being prepared or has been sent to the Centre to disclose information about it to another person. Section 16 sets criminal penalties for offences under the Act. Separately, section 24B lets the Centre impose civil penalties, without prejudice to criminal sanctions, for breach of the Act or the Centre’s directions: up to KES 5 million for a natural person and up to KES 25 million for a body corporate, plus KES 10,000 for each day the failure continues, for a maximum of 180 days. The Centre must first give at least fourteen days written notice before imposing a penalty.