On Thursday 15th December we hosted Barclays Bank of Kenya at our offices at the Nailab. The purpose of the meetup was for the Barclays Bank team to meet and have a conversation with bloggers and the online community as a whole. From the Barclays team we had the CEO Jeremy Awori and the Marketing and Corporate Relations Director Caroline Ndung’u.
We had a long conversation and covered topics around Barclays Bank of Kenya, its values and commitment to the Kenyan market, shared growth, ready to work and the banks innovation agenda. Up for discussion also was the banks new customer focused website.
Ready To Work
Ready to work is an online curriculum that works equip college and university graduates with skills with which to better tackle the job market when they get to looking for jobs. The skills imparted under the Ready To Work program are people skills, work skills, entrepreneurship skills and money skills. A finishing school of this kind is a godsend especially in these days when many people agree that a lot of graduates churning out of the system are lacking the level of finesse required by the fast paced job and business market. They’re equipped with knowledge which they may not have come across in their lecture halls. Learn more about the ready to work program here.
Shared growth
Barclays believes that for it to grow and prosper, the societies and communities in which it operates should also grow and prosper. The bank’s plan and ongoing work is towards creating products, partnerships and services that not only work towards the good of the bank, but also towards improving the lives of the people in the communities that it serves.
It is one thing for corporate bodies to write cheques for CSR purposes, and it is quite another to have deliberate systems to build foundations for future growth for all. The later is what Barclays Bank is looking at. This benefits both the bank and society.
Challenges
Barclays still has work to do to change perception that it’s expensive and elitist. CEO Jeremy says they aren’t expensive #BarclaysEngage
— Martin Gicheru ⚡ (@martingicheru) December 15, 2016
Barclays acknowledges that there is a level of bureaucracy within the banks operations that they need to deal with to keep up with the new crop of customers and the bank is working on that. But to be fair, there is also a level of difficulty in this because Barclays being multinational has to deal with both global standardization as well as localization. Also, it is an old bank and sometimes it pays for decisions made and systems set and cemented for 100 years. There is also an elitist tag to Barclays which the bank is working to drop.
The new website
Our new website features stunning photos of Kenya by local photographer & Instagrammer such as Samir Dave,@samdave69 on IG #BarclaysEngage
— Barclays Bank Kenya (@Barclays_Kenya) December 15, 2016
In a continued bid to reach out to and work for customers better, Barclays has come up with a new website where clients can open accounts, borrow money, get insurance and talk to the bank among other services. In promotion of local talent, the website features stunning photography from Kenyan photographers.
@Barclays_Kenya @BakeKenya big thanks to BAKE for hosting us tonight. Really appreciated the conversation & questions…it was real
— Jeremy Awori (@JeremyAwori) December 15, 2016
We discussed much more and you can get the conversation from the hashtag #BarclaysEngage