Kenya’s Equity Bank Group has said that its net profit for the first nine months this year rose by 18 percent to Sh 15.1 billion compared to Sh 12.8 Billion reported in the same period in 2015. This was was largely as a result of higher interest income and investment in government paper.
The Group posted a 26.8% rise in interest income to Sh 32 billion from Sh 25.6billion posted in the third quarter of 2015 while increasing it holdings in government securities by a massive 155% to Sh 82 billion. On the other hand, non interest income fell by 1.2% to Sh 16.6 billion.
However, Equity Bank Group non performing loans portfolio shot up by 53% to Sh 13.8 billion from Sh 9 billion posted in Q3 2015. Its Kenyan business accounted for a majority of this as its NPLs rose by over 100% to Sh 10.8 billion from Sh 5.24 billion reported nine months ago.
Loans and advances to customers nudged up 3% to Sh271.4Billion while customer deposits grew by a slight margin of 4.5% to Sh331.3billion. Insider loans for Equity Bank Kenya rose by about 15% to Sh 7.6 billion.
Source: (Equity Group, Kenyan Wall Street)
