Nairobi, May 2 -- Standard Chartered Bank Kenya last year spent Sh209.96 million on redundancies, marking the eighth straight year of trimming its workforce amid an increased switch to digital banking.

The lender discloses in its latest annual report that its workforce dropped by 59 to 1,061 in the year it booked Sh209.96 million as redundancy costs, compared with Sh214.07 million in 2021.

The latest staff numbers mean that StanChart has now shed 987 jobs in the last eight years, resulting in a 48 percent drop in the workforce from the peak of 2,048 at the end of December 2014.

Ten-year low

In 2021, the lender cut 160 jobs, while the layoffs in 2020 and 2019 stood at 117 and 170, respectively.

The retrenchments have been implemented ...