The I&M Group has announced that it is planning to increase the number of its physical branches to 100. This increase is expected to be completed within the a two-year period ending December 2026.

The new branch expansion strategy has been dubbed iMara 3.0 and on aggregate, will see I&M Group open some seventeen new branches every year for the next three financial years. Currently, the banking group has 50 physical branches.

The increase comes at a time when I&M Group is on a profit growth, having declared a full year net profit growth of 12.7 percent to Sh. 12.62 billion for the full year 2023.

“A big part of our strategy is to scale up our retail business. Historically, I&M Bank has been a fantastic corporate and small and medium-sized enterprises bank. Part of our strategy is to build up retail banking. To do that, we are trying hard to become globally relevant for Kenyan consumers,” I&M Bank Kenya chief executive officer Gul Khan said.

In January this year, I&M opened eight new branches in Kenya as part of its retail expansion strategy to strengthen its presence in the region.

The branch locations included three in the Coast Region, one in Naivasha, one in Kiambu County, and three within Nairobi County. This expansion put I&M Bank in 15 counties.

Three out of the eight new branches were up-cycled shipping container branches in line with the bank’s sustainability agenda exemplified in its green building headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya and Kigali, Rwanda.

In early March, the bank opened three more branches in Diani, Watamu and Kilifi. “I&M Bank is proud to extend its services to the counties. Our goal is to bring greater financial solutions accessibility to our customers, especially SMEs, by empowering them to achieve their financial goals,” said Khan.

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He noted that the bank is aiming to open more than twelve branches within Kenya by the end of this year in a move that will extend its network to 61 branches.

According to Khan, the bank is position to cross the one million customers mark within the next few years.

“We want to get to one million customers in the next few years and there are a lot of pockets we see in Kenya with a strong retail activity, especially for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and we will be filling those pockets,” he said.