Equity Bank Lays Off 400 Employees

Equity Bank Holdings has joined other lenders in the country cutting costs through laying off of the workforce having sent home a total of 400 employees.

Speaking during the release of Half Year financial results, where the lender reported a profit after tax improvement by 18 percent, the CEO Dr. James Mwangi said that the banks workforce had reduced by 400 in a period of nine months.

Dr. Mwangi attributed the reduction in workforce to natural attrition. The 400-job loss at Equity comes after another 660 job losses witnessed last year. The lender has since announced that there will be no recruiting of staff as more services are now moving to mobile platforms; apps.

Early last month, the bank launched a range of its mobile products that enable customers to access to various banking services at their comfort zones.

Barclays Africa begun the trend when it decided to shut down its regional management office that was in Nairobi and moved all the services to South Africa. The lender, however, assured the Barclays Bank of Kenya employees that their jobs were not to be affected.

During the month of October, Sidian Bank announced plans to lay off a fifth of its workforce sending shivers down the employees in the banking sector. The bank said that it is venturing into investing in technology in place of the retrenched employees.

Last year, Standard Chartered Bank Kenya retrenched a total of 167 employees in what it termed as a restructuring plan that had been initiated by the mother company based in London.

Since the passing of and the signing of the Interest Rates Bill into law, the banking sector has been under financial turmoil. The law now caps the lending rates of the banks to between 14 and 14.5 percent.

Most banks have decided to invest in mobile banking which now seems to be taking over the banking force in Kenya.

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