{"id":866586,"date":"2026-07-17T09:25:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T07:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=866586"},"modified":"2026-07-17T09:41:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T07:41:56","slug":"major-south-african-bank-looking-to-retrench-1200-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/866586\/major-south-african-bank-looking-to-retrench-1200-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"Major South African bank looking to retrench 1,200 workers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

African Bank is planning a significant restructuring, which could impact 1,200 employees and see 90 branches close across South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank has contemplated a Section 189A retrenchment process, with the group recording a net after-tax loss of R624 million for the six months ending March 31 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group also flagged that its costs were growing ahead of its risk-adjusted revenue. This has forced the group to focus on IT, procurement, and other operational costs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“While we continue to explore all cost-saving avenues to minimise the impact on people, we have reached a point where we have no other option but to review our staff costs,” said the bank<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group also plans to delay its initial public offering, which is already a year late, to 2030 amid the heightened costs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

African Bank has been on a massive acquisition drive over the past several years, spending billions to expand its operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank acquired a focused Grindrod Bank for R1.5 billion, Ubank’s assets for R80 million, and Sasfin Capital Equipment Finance and Commercial Property Finance Businesses for R3.25 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While African Bank has acquired these businesses, it pulled out of a deal to buy Eskom’s R5.7 billion Home Loan book, which would have marked its entrance into secured lending. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the deal’s conditions lapsed, African Bank said the collapse followed its board’s decision to consolidate and embed the bank’s organic and inorganic growth over the last five years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company said that it plans to “drive efficiencies and extract more value from the acquisitions done between 2022 and 2025.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group has also faced an intense leadership upheaval, with its former group CEO, Kennedy Bungane, abruptly resigning at the start of March amid poor performance and a regulatory reporting mistake. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank faced intense scrutiny from the Prudential Authority after a controversial loan within the group’s own subsidiaries attempted to increase its capital adequacy ratio. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zweli Manyathi currently serves as the interim Group CEO of African Bank, having previously worked as the CEO of its Business and Commercial Banking division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outrage over the job cuts <\/h2>\n\n\n
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Trade union SASBO has slammed African Bank’s “premature” announcement of its contemplation of the Section 189A consultation process, as well as the public nature of the announcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SASBO criticised the bank for not previously engaging or informing it before such a far-reaching proposal was presented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside of operational costs, SASBO noted that African Bank’s presentation also stated that the restructuring would improve governance following concerns raised by regulators. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“SASBO views the manner in which this process has unfolded as unacceptable. Retrenchments are not merely a business exercise; they have profound consequences for workers,” it said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Any employer contemplating a process of this magnitude has a duty to engage openly, transparently, and respectfully with organised labour before information is released publicly.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It added that workers cannot be expected to carry the consequences of failures of internal governance, decision-making, strategy, or regulatory compliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said that employees should not be treated as the solution to challenges caused by executives’ negligence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SASBO said it will examine the rationale for the proposed restructuring and insist that all reasonable alternatives to retrenchment be thoroughly explored. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

African Bank is looking to restructure its operations, with costs rising ahead of risk-adjusted revenue. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":856698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2078022403402125590","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[4762],"class_list":["post-866586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-african-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866586"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":866606,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866586\/revisions\/866606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}