Dar es Salaam bourse listed CRDB Bank and National Microfinance Bank (NMB) hired the most during in the twelve months ended December last year, a period when almost three quarters of lenders in Tanzania expanded their workforce.

CRDB Bank, which is Tanzania’s largest bank in terms of assets, hired 246 new workers while NMB, the country’s second largest, hired 228 according to Bank of Tanzania’s (BoT) latest annual banking supervision report for the period ended December 2012.

This brought CRDB Bank’s total workforce to 1,898 employees and NMB’s to 2,878 which combined takes up 35.93 per cent of all employees in Tanzania’s banking sector which has 50 lenders.

Stanbic Bank Tanzania hired 155 new workers, Equity Bank Tanzania 147, Azania Bank 102, Access Bank 91, Exim Bank 65, Ecobank 54, Akiba Bank 46 while People’s Bank of Zanzibar hired 45 new workers completing the list of the top ten lenders in the country which hired the most.

The total workforce of the top ten hiring lenders stood at 7,680 as at the end of last year up from 6,501 as at the end of December 2011 accounting for 57.78 per cent and 54.64 per cent of the banking sectors workforce respectively.

BoT’s latest annual supervision report shows that the banking sector’s workforce rose to 13,291 employees from 11,897 reported in 2011.
“This represents an increase of 11.72 percent and was mainly due to the increase in the number of banking institutions, branch expansions and introduction of new products and services,” said BoT in the banking supervision report.

CRDB Bank whose shares trade on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange, opened 20 new branches to reach more customers while NMB whose shares also trade on the Dar es Salaam bourse opened seven in a race to get new depositors and sell loans to customers (See graphic).

NBC Bank, which had a total of 1,474 employees as at the end of 2012, hired 33 new workers but cut its branch network to 52 from 56.

The two top hiring banks were also among the list of those that were offering mobile banking services through short message service indicating that they are also adopting technology giving customers other platforms to transact business.

“The use of electronic payment services has grown significantly overtime and contributed toward, wider outreach of financial services to remote and rural areas of the country,” said the banking supervision report.

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CRDB Bank’s total assets and deposits had risen by 12.93 per cent and 8.06 per cent to Tsh3.07 trillion ($1.9 billion) and Tsh2.58 trillion ($1.6 billion) respectively.

NMB’s assets had risen by 29.53 per cent to Tsh2.81 trillion ($1.7 billion) while deposits had risen by 27.01 per cent to Tsh2.29 trillion ($1.4 billion), NBC’s assets had risen slightly by 2.56 per cent to Tsh1.51 trillion ($965.7 million) while deposits dropped marginally by 0.95 per cent to Tsh1.28 trillion ($814.9 million).

Stanbic Bank Tanzania did not open any new branches but Equity Bank Tanzania opened six, Azania Bank seven, while Access Bank, Exim Bank and Ecobank opened two each (See graphic).

Other banks that were among the top 15 that hired the most are Diamond Trust Bank and Mkombozi Commercial Bank which opened three branches each while Advans and First National Bank opened one branch each.

NMB had 473 automated teller machines (ATM), the highest in the banking sector as at the close of the year, NBC Bank which hired 33 new workers had 305 ATM’s while CRDB Bank 241 accounting for 74.87 per cent of all the ATMs in the banking sector.

CRDB and FBME Bank, which hired nine new employees during the year closed 2012 with 954 and 321 point of sale machines (POS) while Exim and NBC had 321 and 274 POS machines respectively.

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