KCB posts 10pc pre-tax profit

By Judith Akolo

KCB Group has posted a 10 percent rise in profit before tax to 29.1 billion shillings up from 26.5 billion shillings posted the previous year.

KCB Group CEO Joshua Oigara attributes the improvement to the bank’s focus on growth, efficiency and value creation for shareholders.

Shareholders will get a dividend payout of 3 shillings per share up from the 2 shillings per share they got in 2015.

Having navigated the tough economic environment in the banking sector headlined by the capping of interest rates at 4% above the Central Bank Rate, KCB Group has rode on a strong loan and deposit growth to post a 29.1 billion shillings pre-tax profit for the full year ending December 2016.

Oigara says the bank recorded a 20 percent growth in its net interest income to 47 billion shillings, a 35 percent increase in forex income to 5.5 billion shillings, and improvement in total assets, net loan advances, customer deposits, shareholder funds and long term debt funding.

The bank has also seen growth in customer numbers through technology aided banking including mobile banking, MBenki, KCB MPesa, Mobi and payments accounts gobbling up 77% of total transactions.

Since inception of the flagship KCB MPesa in 2015, the bank has disbursed over 16.5 billion shillings to over 7.8 million customers.

KCB has however raised a red flag over its operations in South Sudan owing to hyper-inflation a consequence of the civil strife in the world’s youngest nation.