Equity Bank profits rise to Sh19.8bn

Kenya’s second most profitable bank, Equity Bank, has consolidated its position following the announcement of its net profit by 5% to Sh19.8bn for the year ending December 2018, according to Business Daily Africa.

After the company continued its policy of moving lending to government after the introduction of controls on the cost of loans, Equity Bank’s interest income from Treasury bonds rose 21.7%.

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Having experienced an increase of 26% in the bank’s holdings of government securities in 2017, the loan book also grew 6%.

Equity Bank chief executive officer, James Mwangi, said: “The government has now taken a significant part of the balance sheet of the bank, about 50%, compared to the loan book. As a strategy, we now want to push lending to the private sector using innovative methods, which is why we have projected, whether interest rate capping is there or not, to grow the loan book by between 10% and 15% in 2019.”