Equity Group, Kenya’s second-biggest bank by assets, has fired more than 1,200 employees in a sweeping internal purge to crack down on fraud, CEO James Mwangi said on Wednesday. This marks one of the largest anti-fraud moves by a Kenyan bank in recent years.
The mass dismissal follows a months-long internal investigation into staff collusion with fraudsters, which has cost the bank more than $15.4 million (KES 2 billion) over the past two years. Some funds were illicitly wired to offshore accounts, including a high-profile case involving transfers to Abu Dhabi last year. The probe found that staff across multiple departments had either facilitated or ignored suspicious transactions involving bank clients.
While Equity’s new zero-tolerance stance will likely get regulators and public backing, it reveals deeper governance challenges within Kenya’s banking sector, which has been plagued by high-profile fraud cases. Few financial institutions have taken such a public and far-reaching approach to addressing internal fraud.
“The moment of reckoning has come,” Mwangi told Business Daily in an interview. “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 cleanup began quietly on May 20 when Equity dismissed an initial group of 200 employees, according to Mwangi. But the scale of this week’s layoffs—affecting more than 1,200 staff—signals a significant shift in the lender’s internal culture and tolerance for misconduct. Mwangi said the investigations would extend to the bank’s seven markets, signalling that more dismissals could follow. The bank employs over 14,000 staff.
“I want to encourage customers not to compromise staff,” Mwangi said. “Because we have zero tolerance for anybody who is conflicted.”
Since April, the bank has scrutinised employee transactions, including personal M-PESA activity and bank accounts, to identify staff with links to ongoing fraud cases and customers. An internal source familiar with the probe said even minimal transactional contact with known fraud suspects or ordinary bank customers was grounds for dismissal.
“This is not a toll station,” Mwangi said, condemning a culture where customers routinely offer bank staff tips or gifts to expedite services. “If you have ever eaten Mama Mboga’s chicken, the moment has come.”
Equity Group has positioned itself as a financial inclusion champion, growing from a cooperative society into one of Africa’s biggest banking groups, operating in seven countries, including Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Rwanda. However, rapid digitisation and rising transaction volumes have exposed vulnerabilities, especially internal controls and staff conduct.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the fraud figure is $1.5 million; it has now been updated.
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