Co-op Bank staff count up by 182 on new branches

Co-operative Bank #ticker:COOP hired an additional 182 employees in the year ended December, joining a few lenders to expand its workforce at a time most institutions have been reducing their staff.

The new hiring raised the Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed lender’s staff count to 4,251, the highest in three years.

Its branch network increased to 155 in the review period from 148 the year before, necessitating the recruitment of more employees.

Co-op Bank chief executive Gideon Muriuki said the lender had already optimised staff numbers following the McKinsey-advised transformation programme initiated in 2014 and will, therefore, not cut staff size in the wake of rate cap and increased uptake of digital banking.

“Our staff numbers have remained stable and rising as the transformation agenda has since 2014 helped us build a lean and frugal business model that is supported by optimal staff numbers,” Mr Muriuki said.

Besides Co-op Bank, NIC Group #ticker:NIC also hired 203 more employees last year also on account of more branch openings.

Co-op Bank opened new outlets in Litein, Emali, Makongeni and Utawala last year. Mr Muriuki says three more branches will be opened this year including in Chogoria and Kapenguria.

“We are still opening carefully-selected physical outlets as we believe there is no one single channel that will displace all others, rather, it’s the investment in an optimal and balanced multichannel strategy,” he said.

Most banks, led by Equity Group #ticker:EQTY and KCB Group #ticker:KCB, have, however, trimmed their staff count by hundreds of workers partly due to increased outsourcing and automation of banking services.

Increased uptake of agency and digital banking platforms is expected to help banks keep their staff costs low going forward.