Equity Group has announced its half year results for the period ended June 2022 recording a 36% rise in profit after tax to Ksh 24.4 Billion up from Ksh 17.9 billion for the comparative half year results of the previous year.
The regional lender said profit growth was mainly driven by a 28% growth in net interest income to Ksh 39.8 Billion and a 24.4% increase in non-funded income to Ksh 25.8 Billion. Total interest income was up 29% to Ksh 55 billion up from Ksh 42.8 billion.
The group’s total operating expenses (minus provisions) went up 22% to Ksh 30.6 Billion while interest expenses grew by 30.9% to Ksh 15.2 Billion.
Despite a decline of 1.9% in gross non-performing loans to Ksh 61.0 Billion, loan loss provisions rose significantly by 40.3% to Ksh 4.1 Billion.
Fees and commissions on loans and advances rose by 21.4% to Ksh 4.2 billion while foreign exchange trading income grew by 23% to Ksh 5 Billion.
Loan book grew by 29% to Ksh 650.6 billion up from Kshs 504.8 billion. The bank’s CEO noted that its loan book is 45.9% in US dollars and 54.1% in local regional currencies.
Kenya is still the lender’s biggest market contributing about 60% in assets followed by DRC, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and South Sudan.
The regional lender said it had digitized most of its operations with 99% of all transactions now happening outside the branch network and a corresponding 74% of the value of transactions. During the period under review, the value of digital transactions grew by over 400% to Ksh 4.4 trillion up from Ksh 1.2trillion.
The lender’s total assets grew by 19% to Ksh 1.334 trillion from Ksh 1.120 trillion. The bank attributes the growth to a 59% growth in long term debt funding to Ksh 162.6 billion and 18% growth in customer deposits to Ksh 970.9 billion. Equity’s customer base grew 18% to 16.9 million.
