20 percent of the employees of the National Bank of Kenya will have to lose their jobs after the complete merger with Access Bank Plc. The Competition Authority of Kenya has already given the go-ahead to KCB Group to sell National Bank to Access Bank.
The conditional acquisition will be pegged on the requirement that Access Bank retains 80 percent of National Bank’s workforce and 100 percent of Access Bank’s staff for at least one year.
Employees from both banks had expressed concerns that the new owner would lay them off in a restructuring move without following the stipulated laws of the land forcing the Competition Authority to issue guidelines and conditions.
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NBK has 1,384 employees while the acquirer’s Kenyan subsidiary has 316 staff members. The authority says the proposed transaction will negatively affect employment since, post-merger, the acquirer intends to merge the operations of NBK and its Kenyan subsidiary.
Letting 20 percent of the National Bank employees go means at least 277 will be rendered jobless although the Authority has clarified that they will be compensated as per the Labor Laws of Kenya.
KCB Group had bought all the shares in National Bank and made it part of its subsidiary. By then, the National Bank was making massive losses and was on the brink of collapse.
Access Bank (Kenya), formerly Transnational Bank, has 23 branches across 12 counties in the country. It was acquired by the Nigerian lender in January 2020.
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