A StanChart bank branch in Nairobi. PHOTO | NMG
Bank employee numbers dropped by 420 jobs last year on a shift to digital banking to cut costs in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic that hurt branch visits by customers.
Fresh data by the Central Bank of Kenya shows that banks and microfinance institutions supported 31,605 jobs as at December 2020, down from 32,025 jobs a year earlier with clerical staff taking the biggest hit.
Lenders have rolled out digital banking platforms which have in turn cut the need for customers to brick-and-mortar outlets for services such as opening of accounts, balance inquiry and payment of bills.
The digital shift has in turn cut the number of staff who were previously needed to offer the services at various bank branches.
“The decreases were mainly due to staff rationalisation by some banks as they aligned their business models to the acceleration in digitalisation,” CBK says in its Banking Supervision Report for last year.
Clerical jobs dropped 6.91 percent to 11,138 from 11,965 followed by senior management that fell 3.05 percent to 10,390 in the period under review.
The job cuts came even as banks and micro-financiers increased staff count in the secretarial and supervisory cadres.
Secretarial staff count grew 20.36 percent to 2,495 in the year to December and supervisory jobs increased 4.29 percent to 7,582 in the period under review.
The rise of digital banking has allowed lenders to reach customers directly, reducing the need for physical locations in a move that has also led to massive job losses among clerical staff.
Lenders including StanChart, Stanbic and Equity shut several branches last year headlining the shift to digital banking in place of the traditional brick-and-mortar.
Banks also attributed the digitisation push to the Covid-19 disruptions that hurt customer traffic in banking halls.
No comments :
Post a Comment