British multinational banking and financial services company Standard Chartered Bank has revealed that it plans to hire at least 1,000 more staff in Africa in the next couple of years, with Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy expected to be the destination of most of the soon-to-be-created-jobs.
However, Standard Chartered’s Chief Executive for Africa Diana Layfield declined to specify the exact spread of the employment, which would increase the bank’s staff by more than 10 percent, but she picked out Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana as three of the most attractive markets.
“Nigeria has to be close to the top of everybody’s list (for expansion) … it has scale, growth and real dynamism,” Layfield said on Tuesday during a briefing on Africa by the bank. “Our opportunity in Africa is constrained by the ability to invest at pace, and that’s not just a financial constraint but also a management capacity. So the real challenge is prioritisation”.
Standard Chartered, alongside Barclays and Citigroup are the biggest international banks in Africa, it has about 8,100 staff spread across 15 countries in the continent. In Nigeria, its wholly owned subsidiary has 40 branches located in major cities across the country and currently employs over 800 employees.
According to Reuters, Standard Chartered makes almost all its profits in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. It made a profit of $317 million in Africa in the first six months of this year on income of $878 million, but loans to Africa only account for 3 percent of its global total.
