Banks go full circle as new technology cuts branches

Bank Of Africa’s Monrovia branch is one of the outlets marked for closure. [Photo: Wilberforce Okwiri, Standard]

In the bustling Busia town at the frontier of Kenya and Uganda, residents knew only one thing about banking — extremely long queues with poor service by tellers, who were quick to go to lunch but very slow to attend to exhausted customers.

The problem with the town was that it had only two banks and the postal bank service; National Bank, Kenya Commercial Bank and Postbank.