Equity Bank has led other Kenyan banks including its foremost competitor KCB in profitability. This emerged as KCB, which is the largest bank by assets, recorded a marginal 6.1 per cent growth net profit to Sh. 4.63 billion from Sh. 4.36 billion it recorded the previous year.
On the opposite end, Equity Bank, which released its quarter one financials a fortnight ago, posted a 20 per cent increase in net profit to Sh. 5.1 billion in the three months to March 2016 compared to Sh4.2 billion posted in a similar period last year.
While KCB’s customer savings declined by close to Sh. 1 billion, customers savings with Equity Bank rose to Sh299 billion from Sh276 billion a year earlier. The bank paid out interest of Sh1.7 billion.
Strikingly, KCB’s total loans and advances were flat at Sh345.94 billion as at the end of March compared to Sh345.97 billion in the quarter ended last December.
However, Equity Bank ’s loan book grew to Sh275 billion from Sh224 billion in March last year resulting to a 36.5 per cent increase in interest income to Sh11.2 billion.