Written by Joyce Nzomo
A fresh storm is brewing between Standard Chartered Bank Kenya and hundreds of its retired staff.
More than 600 former employees’ elderly men and women who spent decades working for the bank say they have been unfairly locked out of a pension settlement that the courts have already declared rightfully theirs.
Their frustrations come just weeks after the Supreme Court, on September 5, 2025, confirmed what lower courts had already ruled; the bank made a mistake back in 1999 when it shifted staff from the Defined Benefit Scheme to the Defined Contribution Scheme using the wrong actuarial factors. That error, the courts said, shortchanged retirees and had to be corrected.
While the bank has agreed to compensate 629 members who were part of the original lawsuit, the rest now referred to as the “non-629” say they have been deliberately left behind. They insist that they were in the same pension fund, faced the same unlawful treatment, and should not be treated as second-class pensioners.
Represented by lawyer Danstan Omari, the retirees have written to the bank, accusing its top leadership of ignoring court orders, misleading the public, and discriminating against vulnerable pensioners.
In their letter dated September 22, 2025, they call out the CEO, CFO, CRO, Head of Legal, trustees, and the entire board for actions they believe contradict binding judicial rulings and erode trust in the system.
The retirees outline specific grievances; the CEO is blamed for allowing misleading statements to stand uncorrected, the CFO for hiding the pension liability in financial disclosures, and the CRO for failing to flag serious risks.
The Head of Legal, they say, went as far as to declare that the non-629 would get nothing before the Supreme Court had even delivered its judgment.
The trustees, who are supposed to protect members’ interests, are accused of siding with the bank instead, while the board is faulted for approving profit warnings that excluded the non-629.
In their demands, the retirees are asking for four things; a fresh independent actuarial valuation of the pension schemes as at January 1, 1999, recalculation of balances with compounded returns, corrected communication to all members acknowledging equal entitlement, and a members’ meeting where trustees present a clear plan of action.
The group has given the bank seven days to comply. If that doesn’t happen, they plan to go back to the High Court and seek jail terms or fines for the bank’s top officials, along with personal indemnity costs.
For the retirees, this battle is about more than just money. Many of them are in their twilight years, relying on pensions to cover basic needs.
They argue that excluding them not only deepens their hardship but also undermines Kenya’s entire pension system. “This is about respect for the courts, fairness, and dignity in old age,” they say.
