Bad debt load sinks National Bank into Sh1.2 billion loss

The troubled National Bank of Kenya Thursday reported its biggest loss in eight years. The shocking Sh1.2 billion full-year loss for the year ended December 2015 kicked the lid off the depth of bad loans it dished out in the past year.

National Bank of Kenya’s Harambee Avenue branch. The bank returned a Sh1.2 billion loss in 2015 financial year. [photo: file/standard]

The loss comes just three months after it reported a Sh2.25 billion profit for the nine months of the same year, a result that was widely celebrated by the bank’s managers as its best performance in its 48-year history.