By Jacquiline Wahu
KCB leads as the most profitable lender in Kenya for the first nine months of 2018 ahead of Equity Bank.
The bank maintains its position from the second quarter after the two biggest by profit and assets size banks in Kenya, announced their third quarter performance.
According to both lenders, the outstanding results were as a result of improved cost management and increased gains from higher interest income.
KCB Group reported a 19.63 per cent growth in net profit to Sh18.04 billion while Equity’s profit after tax increased by eight per cent to Sh15.8 billion, giving KCB a Sh2.24 billion lead.
Comparing with second quarter, the difference is huge as KCB had announced a 17.48 per cent net profit increase to Sh12.1 billion, while Equity’s after-tax profit rose 17.52 per cent to Sh11 billion.
The profits were also boosted by mitigation measures on operational costs where KCB cut their expenses by reducing their cost of conducting business by Sh2.1 billion to Sh28.64 billion while Equity cut costs by Sh1.12 billion to Sh26.89 billion.
The two lenders minimized their provisioning for bad loans during the review with KCB’s loan loss provisions reducing by Sh1.34 billion while Equity dropped loan provisions by sh1.56 billion. Notwithstanding the IFRS 9 coming into effect in January.
