Co-operative Bank profits up 19pc to Sh8.91 billion

By James Anyanzwa

Co-operative Bank Group has announced a 19 per cent growth in pre-tax profit for the nine months period ended September 30.

The group’s third quarter profit before tax (PBT) grew to Sh8.91 billion from Sh7.49 billion in a similar period last year.

Co-op Bank Managing Director and Chief Executive Gideon Muriuki attributed the improved performance to progressive growth in balance sheet, increase in transaction-based income and the turnaround in the newly opened branches.

He noted that over 80 per cent of the new branches are already contributing to the bank’s bottom-line.

“ The excellent performance was achieved by the bank despite the challenging macroeconomic environment,” Muriuki said.

According to the group’s unaudited financial statements released yesterday, total customer deposits increased 15 per cent to Sh180.3 billion from Sh156.8 billion.

Muriuki said the growth in customer deposits was triggered by a significant increase in client base to over 3.8 million account holders coupled with increased business emanating from the bank’s institutional and Government banking sector.

“This milestone was achieved through continued opening of accounts as well as cross selling initiatives where we are increasing the wallet size of each customer by offering other products and services to our existing customers,” he said.

The growth is the largest amongst Tier 1 banks that have so far unveiled their profitability figures for the nine month period to September 2013.

Equity Bank and Kenya Commercial bank (KCB)’s pre-tax profits grew by seven per cent and 17 per cent to Sh12.63 billion and Sh15.16 billion respectively in a similar period.

During the period under review the net loan book swelled 13 per cent to Sh134.3 billion from Sh28.9 billion while total assets rose 16 per cent to 228.8 billion from Sh197.7 billion.