BCI doesn't stop 'laying people' and closes the first half of 2023 with a 17% reduction in personnel structure.

Since leaving State control in 2021, the bank has adopted a stance of reducing staff, closing branches and coercive collection of credit debts from its base. In the first six months of 2023 alone, the institution owned by Grupo Carrinho ‘sent them home’ and negotiated terminations by mutual agreement with close to 90 employees. But that's not all: the bank also closed 10 of its branches during the period.

The Bank of Commerce and Industry (BCI) remains solid in its strategy of resizing and optimizing its structure, with consecutive cuts to its employee base and branches. Until the first half of last year (2023), the bank ended its relationship with almost 90 employees of the institution that was purchased from the State, a reduction of 17% compared to the total number of professionals that the banking entity employed until December 31, 2022, from according to the report and accounts for the first half of 2023 to which Kieto Economia had access.

In addition to the cut in staff structure, there is also a reduction in service points. Also in the same period, BCI 'dropped' 10 branches in its current banking capillarity network, in the first half of the year alone.

This is not the first time that BCI accounts have recorded a drop in the number of employees and agencies. This process began, in practice, since the institution left state control through a controversial sale that only yielded to the public coffers a “modest”, according to analysts, 29.3 million dollars, in what was the first major privatization to the under the Government Privatization Program (PROPRIV).

Before passing into the ‘hands’ of the Carrinho family, BCI had an employee base of over 1000 employees, one of the largest in the banking sector at the time.

During the period, BCI had in its shareholder structure the Ministry of Finance, with 99.45% of shares, Sonangol (0.11%); ENSA (0.11%); the Port of Luanda (0.11%); TAAG (0.11%); TCUL (0.04%); ENDIAMA (0.04%) and Angola Telecom (0.04%), according to the consolidated individual balance sheet signed by PCA Zenaida Zumbi, at the end of the 2021 financial year.
 
With the entry of Grupo Carrinho into the business, an entity that alone holds 100% of the bank's shares, a broad process of reduction and expense cuts began, especially in personnel, which 'swept away' from that bank close to 600 frames.
 
Just to give you an idea, the management chosen by the new owner Carrinho carried out a 'cleaning' of almost half of the employees of that institution, which was the second in the Angolan market to meet public service salaries, after the BPC, before the National Bank. of Angola (BNA) to have liberalized the domicile of salaries of civil servants to any of the banks in the domestic financial segment.
 
In the report and accounts for the first half of 2023, BCI management justified the cut in the number of branches with the “improvement of its service network”, which resulted in a significant reduction to 53 service points.

“This measure was carefully planned with a focus on short and medium-term goals, with the aim of optimizing the use of the bank's resources, while ensuring the financial and operational stability of the institution”, reads the preamble of the document that summarizes the financial activity of the institution in the period.

In the document, management also emphasizes that the restructuring was designed with the interests of employees in constant consideration. “(…) As part of this process, we reallocated employees who worked at the affected service points, offering them new opportunities within BCI, at other points or in our central services and outside in partner companies or resolution proposals in mutual agreement with significant advantages for the employee”, argues BCI management.

Profits grow with slack

In the first half of 2023, BCI's net results grew by around 228% to 20.2 billion Kwanzas. This result erases the loss recorded in the same previous period when the accounts of the institution owned by Carrinho recorded a negative net result of around 15.7 billion Kwanzas.