Concept banknotes from 2018 falsely circulated as updated Kenyan shillings released by central bank

In August 2024, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) announced changes to the country’s shilling banknotes, including the addition of two new signatures and security features. A post shared on Facebook claims to show images of the revamped banknotes, with a complete redesign of all denominations. However, this is false; the design of the upgraded banknotes has not changed. The images circulating on Facebook are old conceptual designs created in 2018 by a Kenyan graphic designer and are not sanctioned by the CBK.

“New Money features. CBK introduces new changes to bank notes,” reads a Facebook post shared on November 24, 2024.

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Screenshot of the Facebook post, taken on November 27, 2024

The post includes purported images of Kenya’s updated banknotes in Sh1000, Sh500, Sh200, Sh100 and Sh50 denominations.

The front and reverse sides of the notes feature pictures of wildlife, athletes and a mountain.

The name of a TikTok account called “papi2.0talkshow” appears on the images.

A search for the handle on TikTok led to a post published by the account on November 23, 2024.

Shared more than 7,900 times, the post reads: “Kenya currency what do you think about it (sic).”

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Screenshot of the TikTok post, taken on November 29, 2024

The images were also shared here and here on Facebook and in other posts published here and here on X.

However, the claims about the purported banknotes are false.

Old conceptual designs 

AFP Fact Check conducted reverse image searches and found news reports from 2018 where the same banknote images were used.

The Star Kenya featured them in a January 4, 2018 article, noting that they were designed by Radio Afric’s Dicky Hockie as a “trial and error” for fun (archived here).

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Screenshot of the Star Kenya article, taken on November 27, 2024

Hockie, a graphic designer, published the conceptual images on his Behance profile under a project named “The Modern Shilling” (archived here).

“This in NOT legal tender and is NOT sanctioned by the CBK or the Government of Kenya,” reads a disclaimer on the site.

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Screenshot of Hockie’s money concept project, taken on November 27, 2024

Citizen Digital also reported on the illustrator’s designs at the time (archived here).

New features 

The CBK has not released new designs of the country’s banknotes but introduced new features on the current ones.

In August 2024, the CBK announced four changes to the current banknotes including the signatures of CBK Governor Kamau Thugge and the Principal Secretary of the National Treasury Chris Kiptoo. Other amendments include changing the year of print to 2024, and new security threads with color-changing effects specific to each denomination (archived here).

In a statement published on X on November 20, the monetary authority of Kenya announced that the release of the updated Sh50, Sh100 and Sh200 denominations had begun (archived here).

Five days later, the CBK published images of the updated notes on X, highlighting the new features (archived here).

“Do you want to familiarize yourself with our currency notes? The 2024 series features updates including the Governor’s and Member's signature, year of print (2024), and updated security features. These notes will circulate alongside those previously issued,” reads the post.