The Co-operative Bank has opened a new branch in Marimanti town, Tharaka-Nithi County. Interestingly, the bank honoured one of its customers by inviting him as one of the chief guests to open the branch.

“Our people in the neighborhood of Marimanti can now enjoy our banking services much closer to them. Today, we opened the branch with our Customer Mr. James Mikume confirming that customers have been waiting for us to open,” the bank said in a statement.

The opening of the Marimanti town branch comes after the bank opened a new branch in Luanda town, Vihiga County, in July this year.

As part of its strategic expansion drive, Co-op Bank is this year looking to open over a dozen new branches. In March this year, the lender announced that it was committed towards extending services to rural areas with limited banking services in a bid to bridge the access to financial services gap.

Co-op Bank director of retail and business banking William Ndumia said that the bank will be opening up to 15 branches in various locations in the country as part of its strategy of taking banking services closer to the people.

“When we look at our mission and vision, we want to be dominant in this market and there are some areas where we have not gone into. There are even counties where we do not have a presence,” he said.

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“We want to seal that gap. Also, because of the infrastructure development that has happened across the country, there are some key towns that have come up and there is a lot of business and some of our customers are spreading out.”

In 2023, Co-op Bank opened eight new branches. These branches were an increase on the six branches the bank opened in year 2022. As at September 2023, Co-op Bank had 193 branches.