BPR employees celebrating fusion with Atlas Mara early this year
Rwanda’s largest bank-Banque Populaire du Rwanda-BPR Atlas Mara is laying off over 300 employees, KT Press exclusively reports.
About 33 of the 300 employees have already been sacked as the bank’s strategy to streamline itself to fully move towards operational integration after a recent merger. It’s Rwanda’s largest bank by branch locations and second largest by assets.
“There are internal interviews going on apparently,” a source told KT Press on Tuesday.
The bank was early this year acquired by Atlas Mara which was later merged with BRD a commercial bank that was curved out of Development Bank of Rwanda.
John F. Vitalo, Chief Executive Officer of Atlas Mara said;“We are aiming at becoming a true leader in Rwandan financial services and bring value to our customers, employees and the broader communities we serve.”
“Our stakeholders can look forward to a better and stronger business that is focused on performance and innovation,” Vitalo said.
The restructuring according to the source is part of the bank’s move to reposition itself in the market after its gloomy performance outlook before Atlas Mara’s investment worth RWF15.3bn.
Sanjeev Anand, Chief Executive Officer of BPR, earlier said the bank has been previously under performing due to lack of enough funds, which saw the bank’s loan portfolio performing poorly thus lowering its profits.
In the first nine months of 2015 the bank’s profits fell to Rwf 395.1 million down from Rwf 864.3 million in the same period under review in 2014.
Other sources however, say that the bank is trying to cut down operational costs as it moves towards introducing more digital products and refurbishing its branches across the country.
