Commercial banks’ payroll burden rose to a seven-year high in 2016, even as interest rate caps began to erode the industry’s earnings, prompting the lenders to introduce a raft of cost-cutting measures.
Newly released Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) data shows that staff costs rose 9.6 per cent to Sh83.9 billion in the year ended December 2016 or 82.1 per cent of the net earnings, which increased 8.8 per cent to Sh102.2 billion.
