Report: Standard Chartered in Kenya to Focus on Retail Customers

Standard Chartered Plc., a London-based global financial services company, said its Kenyan branch will focus on the East African nation’s retail sector, Bloomberg reported Monday (March 14).

The lender, with 87,000 workers employed in more than 1,200 branches in 70 countries, is reportedly focused on expanding in the African country of 53 million.

Standard Chartered reported an annual profit of 9 billion shillings ($79 million), the highest in five years.

“Now we are able to grow at scale on the mass retail segment and really be able to reach not just thousands but millions of clients because of the enablement of technology,” CEO Kariuki Ngari said at an investor briefing, after posting a 68% jump in last year’s profit.

Eric Musau, senior research analyst at Nairobi-based Standard Investment Bank Ltd., said investment in technology at Standard Chartered is allowing the lender to move from affluent clients to more mass-market products without a significant increase in cost.

In January, PYMNTS wrote that Standard Chartered planned to close half of its Nigerian branches as the company emphasized digital banking. The firm closed some offices in December, cutting the number of branches in the country from 25 to 13.

Read more: Standard Chartered Emphasizing Digital With Nigerian Branch Closures

Instead, Standard Chartered plans to focus on boosting its mobile banking capabilities and recruiting employees who can assist new customers and handle cash deposits and withdrawals across Africa’s biggest economy.

Last fall, Standard Chartered also teamed up with Demica, a working capital FinTech, on an online portal to streamline access to the bank’s supplier finance program.

Related: Standard Chartered and Demica Team on Digital Portal

The collaboration was expected to start a fully digitized end-to-end portal, which promised to change the way suppliers choose supply chain finance programs with a digital front end.