Diamond Trust Bank Kenya (DTB) on Friday said it will shut down six branches from July to reduce costs and improve efficiency.
However, it did not indicate how many of its employees will be affected by the consolidation process.
“The Central Bank of Kenya has approved an application by Diamond Trust Bank to consolidate its branches in certain locations within the country,” DTB said.
“The staff in the affected branches will be redeployed appropriately to support other branches or business units within our network.”
Branches to be affected include Jamuhuri Street branch in Malindi, two in Westlands (the Oval & 9 West), Kago Street branch in Eldoret, Garden City Mall and the Eastleigh branch.
The branches will be merged into five existing outlets: Malindi Branch, Westgate Mall, Eldoret Branch, Thika Road Mall and Madina Mall.
According to CBK’s Bank Supervision 2019 Report, the number of bank branches decreased from 1505 in 2018 to 1490 in 2020.
“The decrease in physical bank branches was mainly attributed to the adoption of alternative delivery channels such as mobile phone banking, internet and agency banking,” said the CBK.
According to the report, KCB Group had 203 branches, followed by Equity with 171 (and 12 sub-branches), Co-operative Bank of Kenya (152), Absa Bank (107), Family Bank ( 2), National Bank (78), and Diamond Trust with 70.
Diamond Trust Bank said its performance for the year was affected by the Covid-19 containment measures which hurt trade flows and created uncertainty on export, hospitality, real estate, aviation, tourism and agribusiness subsectors, forced it to increase loan loss provisions.
