Absa Bank Kenya added 159 new jobs in the six months ended June 2024, as part of the lender's initiatives to ramp up customer acquisition.
The lender noted that the new hires align with its growth strategy, adding that it will continue to make investments in technology and digitisation.
“The majority of these hires have been on the customer facing side of the business. It's more on the sales and staff dealing directly with our customers,” Absa's chief finance officer Yusuf Omari said.
The new hiring complemented a network expansion drive during the same period, which saw Absa increase its number of agents fivefold to 3,131, bringing the lender’s presence to all 47 counties.
Absa similarly opened three new branches in the six months to take its tally of physical outlets to 85.
The lender’s chief executive Abdi Mohamed says the network expansion signifies the bank’s intent to reach out to customers.
The bank had 1,047,422 customers at the end of last year having grown the count from 917,507 in 2022.
“If you look at Absa’s presence today, we are present in more locations than we have been in our history. The philosophy here is to say to our customers that we want to be where they are.
“We don’t want our customers looking for us, we want to look for our customers,” he said.
The bank says it has also increased its capabilities abroad allowing Kenyans overseas to open accounts with the bank, including current accounts, insurance, wealth and investments, advisory and support in opening DhowCSD accounts through which investors can buy government securities.
Absa did not immediately disclose its total number of staff in the period, but it had 2,130 employees in December 2023, up from 2,070 previously.
The lender’s staff costs in the six months to June rose by 10 percent to Sh6.1 billion from Sh5.6 billion a year earlier, with the growth largely attributed to new hiring and the effect of salary increases that happen in April.
Absa's network includes 198 ATMs, 60 cash deposit machines and 10,548 point-of-sale devices.
The lender posted a 28.9 percent growth in its half year net profit to Sh10.7 billion on higher income from lending as it benefited from the repricing of loans to customers amid a high-interest rate environment.
The bank retained its interim dividend to shareholders at 20 cents per share or a total of Sh1.09 billion, payable on or before October 15 to shareholders on its book as of September 20.
Absa closed the period with an asset base of Sh481.4 billion including a loan book of Sh316.3 billion.
