Home loan staff at two of South Africa’s major banks – Absa and FNB – are to be retrenched because the home loan market has fallen dramatically over the past few years. First National Bank’s chief executive, Jan Kleynhans confirmed that the bank is restructuring its home loan department.
He says that about 90 people have already been advised that they might be affected by the retrenchment programme. FNB currently employs about a thousand people in the home loan department countrywide.
He says that it is not possible to say how many people will actually leave the bank because ideally the bank would like to redeploy them into a different position.
Absa has declined to give details of its retrenchment plans but its deputy group chief executive, Louis van Zeuner says that it is reducing “duplication” and is focusing on programmes that will “enhance efficiencies” within the bank.
Last week, the director of home loans at Standard Bank indicated that the home loan market had plunged in value from about R350 billion in 2006/07 to just R120 billion last year.
FNB has confirmed that its monthly volume of home loan applications had fallen to 10 000 from between 30 000 and 35 000 a month in 2006/07.
Standard Bank and Nedbank have both said that at this stage there are no plans to retrench staff in the home loans divisions.
However, last year Standard Bank retrenched about 1 500 people as part of a significant cost cutting exercise and 1 200 of those were in South Africa with 300 being employed by the organisation’s international operation. - Paddy Hartdegen
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