Jobs to be lost as Stanchart restructures

The Standard Chartered Bank in Kenya has announced that it would reduce the size of its staff as it seeks to restructure its business.

It was however not immediately clear how many jobs would be declared redundant in the exercise.

In a statement to newsrooms, the bank warned that its full year profit this year would be 25 percent lower than the profit it recorded in 2014.

The bank said it expects its non-performing loan portfolio to increase further by the end of this year.

In its nine-month results, Stanchart announced a 20 percent decline in its profitability to Sh8.96 billion compared to the profit that was recorded during a similar period last year.

The profit drop was mainly attributed to a nearly 50 percent increase in its loan loss provisions to just under Sh1.7 billion shillings.

The announcement comes barely two weeks after the government’s decision to slow down its borrowing from the domestic market where rates shot up to 22 percent.

This saw the 91-day Treasury bill rates drastically fall from 22 percent to 9 percent and commercial banks lower their lending rates.

Equity Bank Group also withdrew its plans to increase its borrower’s interest rates before revising the decision after inflation and interest rates stabilized.

The bank had earlier on informed its customers that lending rates would be increased from the 19th of this month from 17 percent to 24 percent due to high Treasury bill rates that had sky rocketed to 22 percent.