The shilling, which has lost about 14 percent against the U.S. currency this year, was trading at 102.65/75 to the dollar at 0700 GMT, compared with 102.45/55 at Friday's close.   

"Last week there was dollar demand from large private equity... and there are remnants of that demand weakening the shilling," said a trader at one Nairobi-based commercial bank.   

He added that the focus for the rest of the trading session will be on the central bank, which last week said that it was monitoring the currency closely and was ready to step up its activities "to stem a sharp depreciation".    

The bank has already boosted interest rates by three percentage points to 11.5 percent since June and intervened at least three times last week to sell dollars to support the shilling. The next Monetary Policy Committee meeting is on Aug.5.   

The shilling has been under pressure from the global strength of the dollar, a slide in valuable tourism revenue and a widening current account deficit.   

Traders say the shilling's slide will be checked by the rising rates on the overnight borrowing market for banks, where the average weighted interest rate rose to 13.6 percent on Friday from 12.8 percent a day earlier.

--reuters--