KDIC hires trauma experts to counsel staff after banks fall
What you need to know:
Many customers, despite being millionaires, publicly shared painful stories of surviving on loans and help from friends after the institutions came crashing down.
The latest banks to fall have left a widespread trail of devastation as the dreams and livelihoods of thousands of customers suddenly came tumbling down like a house of cards.
The Kenya Deposit Insurance Corporation (KDIC) has enlisted the services of trauma experts to help Imperial Bank employees deal with emotional stress arising out of the handling the recent collapse of the bank.
The institution charged with insuring customer deposits with commercial banks said in an in-house communication to Imperial Bank employees seen by Business Daily that it has hired a psychotherapist and counsellor to cater for the “psychological health of (Imperial Bank) employees.”
“We felt it would be best if we have workshops for all staff to counsel them around the trauma of the last 10 months and experience of receivership,” says the KDIC communication to company staff. Kenya has seen 27 lenders collapse or put under receivership in the country’s banking history.
The most recent lenders to be placed under receivership are Chase Bank (which has since reopened), Imperial Bank that is still under KDIC management and Dubai Bank, the first lender to be put under statutory management under Patrick Njoroge’s administration at the Central Bank of Kenya.
Dubai Bank is currently under liquidation.
Dr Njoroge joined the CBK last June.
“We have noted that, as I am sure most of you have, that staff have had some degree of difficulty dealing with the turn of events after October 13, 2015.
Clinical psychologists
To this end we have contracted two clinical psychologists to facilitate two-hour workshops across the bank … the broad purposes of the workshops is to equip staff with emotional strength to deal with any issues they may be going through,” said the KDIC management to Imperial Bank staff.
The last time that several banks collapsed in quick succession was in the early to mid 1990s following the Goldenberg scandal which involved billions of shillings being routed through financial institutions on the pretence that they were generated from exports.
The latest banks to fall have left a widespread trail of devastation as the dreams and livelihoods of thousands of customers suddenly came tumbling down like a house of cards.
Many customers despite being millionaires, publicly shared painful stories of surviving on loans and help from friends after the institutions came crashing down.
The staff at Imperial Bank have been witness to the stories of pain of customers and depositors as they have had to manage the receivership and liquidation.
In the case of Imperial Bank, its CEO died shortly before the banks was put under KDIC’s statutory management after its directors reported fraudulent transactions.
The experts hired by KDIC will be required to “equip staff with emotional strength to deal with any issues they may be going through,” according to the memo to Imperial Bank staff.
Since the appointment of Dr Njoroge as the governor of the CBK, many banks have been forced to clean up their books with many doubling or tripling their loan losses after years of failing to fully provide for credit that was not being repaid.
