Recent mass firings at regional lender Equity Bank, particularly within its Kenyan operations, have once again triggered a fresh wave of criticism from former employees who continue to blame the institution for conducting the purge under dubious circumstances and with little regard for due process.
While the bank has defended the dismissals as part of a sweeping internal fraud investigation, ex-staff say the latest round in May 2025, which saw more than 1,200 people lose their jobs in a single day, was only the latest in a pattern of mass terminations that have left careers in ruins and families in financial distress.
Dismissed Equity Bank employees claim the lender is using scholarship programmes backed by the Mastercard Foundation as a low-cost hiring pipeline while cutting long-serving staff.
This development represents merely the most recent strand in a broader tapestry of grievances that dismissed employees have been weaving since the first wave of layoffs began, with each successive group of former staff introducing new dimensions to an already contentious narrative.
Whereas earlier objections centred on claims that the fraud investigation served as a pretext for the systematic removal of older, more experienced, and higher-salaried personnel (allegations often accompanied by assertions that audit findings were manipulated to suit predetermined objectives or to silence dissenting voices within the institution) the present chorus of discontent has shifted focus towards the bank’s celebrated alliance with the Mastercard Foundation, casting it in an entirely different light from the philanthropic image projected to the public.
In this latest articulation of their disapproval, these ex-employees contend that initiatives such as Wings to Fly and the Equity Leaders Programme, lauded for providing scholarships, mentorship, and professional development opportunities to tens of thousands of young people, have been repurposed to serve as an efficient and cost-effective labour pipeline, enabling the bank to populate its workforce with fresh graduates willing to work for considerably lower wages, thereby facilitating the removal of long-serving staff under the guise of moral and operational renewal.
Both are cornerstone projects of the Mastercard Foundation’s multi-billion-shilling investment in Equity Bank, and their integration into the institution’s staffing model, which in the eyes of recently dismissed staff, not an extension of philanthropy but a calculated mechanism for workforce displacement, one that allows the bank to parade its partnership with an internationally respected development organisation while systematically undermining the job security and livelihoods of its most experienced employees.
This framing by aggrieved staff is only the latest chapter in a sustained campaign of denunciation that has trailed the bank since the first wave of dismissals earlier this year. Previous rounds of outrage were fuelled by accounts of employees being accused of fraud over transactions so trivial and easily explained that they bordered on the absurd, accompanied by full documentation, dismissed as suspicious without credible justification.
Former staff recounted being compelled to surrender personal documents such as national IDs and birth certificates of relatives in desperate bids to prove their innocence, only to be met with perfunctory rejections and termination letters already prepared.
Among the most bitter grievances was the claim that even those who had recently been rewarded with permanent and pensionable contracts, supposedly the ultimate recognition of loyalty and performance, were summarily purged, not for any substantiated misconduct, but to clear the way for a predetermined influx of scholarship programme alumni.
To them, the May 2025 dismissals are therefore not an isolated act but the culmination of a calculated pattern, in which the rhetoric of integrity and fraud prevention conceals a wholesale restructuring of the bank’s workforce to serve an entirely different agenda.
Below is what one of the recently terminated employees described as the stark reality behind the bank’s internal purge.
“Good afternoon Nyakundi. Equity Bank has once again shown its true colors, a heartless corporate giant hiding behind glossy Mastercard Foundation partnerships while discarding the very people who built its empire. In a shocking and disgraceful move, the bank has fired over 1,200 employees under the guise of an “internal fraud probe” worth KES 2 billion (USD 15.4 million). The official line? A crackdown on fraud. The truth from insiders? Many of these were innocent, long-serving, higher-paid staff pushed out over flimsy, fabricated, or petty accusations all to make room for cheaper labor.
And where does this cheaper labor come from? Equity’s own scholarship programs, Wings to Fly and the Equity Leaders Programme (ELP), heavily funded by the Mastercard Foundation. These programs produce thousands of fresh graduates every year, many of whom are funnelled directly into paid internships at Equity Bank. It’s the perfect arrangement. Parade “philanthropy” to the world while creating a low-cost labor pipeline. The same workers who dedicated their lives to growing Equity have been kicked out “like dogs” to make way for a new generation of employees who cost a fraction to hire.
Equity Group Foundation sells the image of a generous, people-first institution. They boast about sponsoring over 60,000 students with a 97% completion rate and high university admissions. But behind the smiling graduation photos lies a calculated corporate scheme: use charity as a PR shield to distract from the ruthless dismantling of loyal careers and the human rights violations happening inside the bank.
For those thrown out, the human cost has been devastating. One month’s salary, a Certificate of Service, broken promises of bonuses, and reputations tarnished by unproven allegations of fraud. Many are now jobless and humiliated while Equity continues to polish its public image and manipulate profit figures, even relying on its DRC subsidiary to hide poor performance in Kenya.
Equity calls itself “The People’s Bank.” But when a bank prioritizes self-promotion over justice, image over humanity, and greed over loyalty, it loses the right to that title. Kenyans must see through the scholarship noise. This is not benevolence but exploitation wrapped in a Mastercard ribbon.
We call on customers to take a stand. Move your money. Support banks that treat staff with dignity, uphold due process, and practice transparency. Equity Bank must be held accountable. Every dismissal reviewed, every wronged employee compensated, and every manipulative hiring practice exposed. Until then, remember this: a bank that can destroy the lives of its own people will never hesitate to betray its customers.”
