Following KCB’s 2019 FY results that were announced exactly one week ago today, Equity Bank has done the same thing in a meet held today for the year ended 31 December 2019.
Numbers from the financial institution reveal that it netted 14 percent profit after tax to Kes 22.6 billion from Kes 19.8 billion recorded in 2019.
“Execution of the Group’s business strategy continued to yield results as non-funded income contributed 40% of the Group’s total income reflecting quality and diversification of income. Success in our regional expansion and business diversification saw subsidiaries contribution to Group profit after tax rise to 18% up from 15% the previous year,” said Dr. James Mwangi, Managing Director and CEO.
The details of the numbers, which can be read here , include an impressive loan book that hit KES 366.4 billion, a growing balance sheet register that jumped by 17 percent to Kes 673.7 billion and 14 percent rise in customer deposits – but the most interesting aspect of the release is centred on the Group’s innovation and digitization activities that spurred the shift to using internet services for banking functions, a move that has since been replicated by all other financial institutions operating in the Kenya space.
So far, the bank’s third-party infrastructure for digital banking, namely mobile, internet, agency, and merchant banking has been at the forefront in pushing the digitization agenda – but the numbers have not changed for the last year or so because the current 97 percent transactions that leverage the said infrastructure has remained stagnant as of the current report.
Equity, which partnered with the Government and Mastercard for the Young Africa Works initiative that looks forward to creating 5 million jobs for Kenyans in the next half a decade, says that it has enhanced efficiency and cost optimization with a cost-income ratio rise of 1.4% from 51 percent in 2018.
Lastly, the bank has for some time been trying to limit operations in banking halls for corporate transactions that it said would be digitized by this time. We are always in the lookout about how it will pull it off, bearing in mind that the 97 percent value reported precedingly affects low-value transactions and that it has remained so for a while now.
