The veil that often surrounds bank employees salary in Kenya has been lifted. According to a report that appeared in ghe Business Daily recently, the leading earners are the chief executives officers.
Apparently, the CEOs earn up to 50 times what the median bank employee earns.
Employees of Stanbic are the best paid in the banking sector with an average compensation of Sh. 5.3 million or Sh. 446,666 per month. However, Stanbic, which is strong in corporate banking, employs just 1,071 staff or 16 per cent of Equity’s workforce.
“This remuneration structure means that a typical bank employee in Kenya will need to work for five decades to earn what the average CEO makes in a year,” says the report.
The daily further says that bank CEOs earned an average of Sh. 128.3 million in the year ended December 2017. The median bank worker on the other hand was paid a total of Sh. 2.5 million or Sh. 215,200 per month.
“Across the nine publicly traded banks, the CEO-to-worker multiples range from 18.6 times to 154.9 times, with number of workers, the pay levels and the size of the executive’s compensation as the key determinants of the wage gaps,” the paper reports.
KCB whose boss, Joshua Oigara, was paid Sh. 256 million or 87.8 times the average paid to employees. The employees took Sh. 2.9 million or Sh. 242,852 a month paid.
“Equity Bank has a CEO-to-worker multiple of 35.2 times based on the disclosure that CEO James Mwangi earned Sh. 60.4 million while the bank’s workers took home an average of Sh. 1.7 million or Sh.142,652 per month,” the Business Daily said.
At National Bank of Kenya, the CEO earned a total of Sh. 48 million last year or 18.6 times the average of Sh. 2.5 million or Sh. 215,200 that his employees took home.
“NBK’s average monthly wage of Sh. 215,200 is also the industry’s median pay,” the paper further says.
According to BD, Barclays is next in the pay fairness tables after its CEO, Jeremy Awori, was paid Sh. 89.5 million or 19.9 times the average of Sh. 4.4 million or Sh. 373,676 per month that his staff earned in the 2017.
Standard Chartered Bank Kenya CEO, Lamin Manjang, earned a total of Sh. 104 million compared to the average of Sh. 4.3 million or Sh. 363,275 that was paid to his employees.
“The pay disclosures also reveal different strategies that banks have applied in compensating their employees. Equity, for instance, has the largest staff count of 6,710 who are paid the lowest average salaries to man the lender’s large retail banking operation,” says Business Daily.