Cooperative bank has announced plans to expand into Ethiopia and Uganda. The move follows successful entry into South Sudan, which the bank says has proved successful. The bank joins the KCB group and equity bank which have used expansion into the regional market as tool to grow earnings. The announcement comes as co-op bank reports 15 percent growth in pretax profit which stood at 6.7 billion shillings in the first half of the year. The results were driven by higher commission fees and growth in net interest income. During the period the bank’s loan book surged 32.7% to 165.8 billion shillings while total customer deposits increased by 14% to 203.3 billion Shillings. If successful, cooperative bank will be the first local bank to set up in Ethiopia, a market that has proved difficult to capture.