Details have emerged in the Equity Bank layoffs indicating that fraudsters colluded with banking staff to steal a whooping $15.4 million equivalent to KES 2 billion in the last two years alone.
The probe has revealed that substantial funds were illicitly wired to offshore accounts, specifically a high-profile case last year involving transfers to Abu Dhabi. The investigations further found out that Equity staff across multiple departments either facilitated or complicity ignored suspicious transactions involving bank clients.
The cleanup begun on May 20 when the Bank CEO James Mwangi dismissed 200 employees in a low-key move. The web expanded and the dismissal of 1200 staff in one swoop is perhaps the largest anti-fraud move by a Kenyan bank, ever.
“The moment of reckoning has come,” said James Mwangi “It doesn’t matter how many I will lose. I don’t even care. I have just started the journey. I will protect the customers and the bank. I will be ruthless.”
The probe is expected to take in the bank’s seven markets in Kenya, Tanzania, South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Equity Group, is Kenya’s second-biggest bank by assets with a staff count of 14,000. It is believed that digitisation led to the exposure of the internal fraud.
Kenya’s banking sector is often plagued by cases of fraud and accusations of money laundering that is conveniently swept under the carpet.
The move by Equity Bank now signals intolerance for internal fraud and could herald a rebirth of stricter morals and regeneration of trust in the banking sector.
Meanwhile, yesterday (Friday) Asia-Pacific markets fell from effects of a slowing U.S. economy, inflation fears and uncertainties from the judicial developments surrounding U.S. President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs weighing on investor sentiment.
The uncertainty set in when on Wednesday the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that Trump had overstepped his authority when he imposed his “reciprocal” tariffs. The court ordered that the challenged tariff orders be vacated.
However, the Trump administration immediately filed a notice of appeal and an appeals court reinstated the levies on Thursday afternoon. The Trump administration has said it will ask the Supreme Court as early as Friday to pause the federal court’s original ruling if necessary.
Trade talks between the U.S. and China were also “a bit stalled,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News in an interview Thursday local time.
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