About us
- 1.1 Introduction
Standard Chartered Bank Kenya Limited was established in 1911 with the first branch opened in Mombasa Treasury Square.
Today, 101 years later, Standard Chartered Bank is one of the leading Banks in Kenya, with an excellent franchise. It has a total of 33 branches spread across the country, 90 automated teller machines (ATMs) and 1,698 employees.
Standard Chartered Bank Kenya Limited has local shareholding of about 26%, comprising about 32,000 shareholders. It has remained a public quoted company on the Nairobi Securities Exchange since 1989.
Our capital, deposit base, and lending portfolio is reported in Kenya Shillings, and we offer a variety of local and foreign currency accounts, both deposit and loan, to our customers. We have a diversified portfolio cutting across select sectors that include business services, manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, transport and communication, real estate, agriculture, energy and water.
Further underpinning its importance, Standard Chartered Bank Kenya Limited hosts the regional Shared Service Centre supporting the Bank’s technology operations in Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia and Botswana and South Africa on a real time basis.
- 1.2 Milestones
- Standard Chartered Bank was the first Kenyan Bank to be awarded the ISO 9002 certification in technology systems;
- Standard Chartered Bank opened the first ATM in Kenya and first Automated Banking Centre for 24-hour convenience;
- First utility bill payment and satellite television payment over ATM;
- First to introduce priority Banking facilities in Kenya for more affluent customers;
- First to launch International Photo Debit Card;
- First to introduce unsecured Personal Loan;
- First to launch Mobile Top-Up scheme; and
- First to launch Banking Business Solutions for corporate customers.
- 1.3 Awards in Excellence
- Best Foreign Bank in Kenya 2012 – EMEA Africa Finance Awards
- Green Building Recognition Award – March 2012
- Second position Best Bank in Kenya 2012 – Think Business Banking Awards
- Financial Reporting Excellence Award - ( 2011, 2010, 2008, 2002 & 2001)
- Best Bank in Kenya 2011 - Think Business Banking Awards
- Best Bank in Kenya 2010 - Euromoney Awards for Excellence
- Best Bank in Kenya 2010 - Think Business Banking Awards
- 2010 Award Winner - Great Work Place (Gallup)
- Corporate Citizenship Award 2009 - Financial Reporting Excellence Awards
- East Africa Most Respected Financial Institution (2003, 2005, 2006) - Nation Media Group and PriceWaterhouseCoopers
- Corporate of the Year Bank 2005 - Market Intelligence
- Silver Prix for Most Promising New Product 2005 (Kenya’s Fixed Rate Home Loan) Grand Prix Gold Award 2005 - IFS/Deloitte Financial Innovation Awards
- Best Internet Bank (2007 & 2008) - Global Finance Magazine
- Standard Chartered is committed to building a sustainable business in Kenya. In 2011, our investment in the community through various initiatives and sponsorships aimed at enriching and empowering the community as well as deepening our relationships with customers and key stakeholders was KShs.88 million. We believe that building a sustainable business will drive shareholder value.
- In Kenya, our flagship community initiative is Seeing is Believing, whose aim is to eradicate avoidable blindness among children. This initiative is funded from the proceeds of the Standard Chartered Nairobi Marathon and to date, we have raised over US$ 1million and as a result over 4,500 children under the age of nine have undergone surgery and regained their sight.
- Protecting the environment is a key agenda in our sustainability efforts. We continued to integrate our environment mitigation efforts into our business as well as enhancing energy use in our day to day operations. Our desire to protect the environment has led to a tree planting drive where our staff, in the last five years, have planted thousands of trees across the country.
- Last year, the Bank opened its US$36m headquarters in Nairobi, designed to achieve the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. LEED is an internationally recognised green building certification system that ensures that buildings are designed, constructed and operated with high environmental standards. In March 2012, the Bank won a Green recognition from the Kenya Association of Manufacturers.
- We recognise that education is a key pillar of Kenya’s Vision 2030 blueprint. To help further this agenda, the bank has decided to support girl education in two areas:
- Secondary Education: Most girls at Starehe Girls Centre are bright but from very poor backgrounds. In response to this need the Bank sponsors the education of five girls through form one to form four.
- Global Give Back Circle: The Global Give Back Circle (GGBC) seeks to ‘complete” the educational process of the world’s disadvantage girls, so they gain employable skills and become contributing members of society. It accomplishes this through a transitioning model that recognizes an impoverished girl needs mentoring empowerment and financial enablement to step-change her accessibility to “Life’s Chances”.
- Selection of 5 girls each year from Starehe Girls Centre who have attained Grade B+ and above.
- During the gap period and three months university breaks per year, the Bank will offer them employment in the bank under the internship program. Part of the money the girls receive goes towards paying for their university expenses.
The GGBC objective for 2012 is to transition 100 at-risk adolescent girls from marginalized circumstances to contributing global citizens, by embedding a Give Back Ethos. In Kenya it targets girls from Starehe Girls Centre and St. Martins. The program is designed to integrate volunteer service, community infrastructure and government loan systems to help disadvantaged girls continue their education process, find employment and break out of the circle of poverty. Research done by GGBC has shown that it cost US$10,000 to cover a girl’s costs from the time she leaves high school to the time she graduates from university i.e. a period of 5 and a half years (includes an unavoidable gap period of 18 months between high school graduation and start of university). This covers accommodation, personal items, food, books and transportation. Standard Chartered Bank Kenya support for this initiative takes the following format:
- We continued to enhance our commitment to make the Bank an employer of choice through high-quality training for our staff, employee engagement and creating an inclusive culture among other initiatives especially in gender empowerment.