Barclays Bank Kenya records Sh.3.8b half year profit

Barclays Bank of Kenya has recorded a profit after tax of Sh3.8 billion for the period ended 30th June 2018, a growth of 6 per cent compared to a similar period last year.

According to the Bank, during the period, total income was increased by 5 per cent to Sh15.7 billion while net interest income had a 4 per cent increase mainly driven by growth in government securities book which grew by 62 per cent.

Again, customer loans were up 8 per cent to close at Sh176 billion driven by Scheme Loans, General lending, trade and Mortgages.

Also,during the same period, customer deposits grew by 15% to Sh217 billion with transactional accounts constituting 66pc of the total deposits.

The Bank’s average loan loss ratio stood at 2% from 1.7% in 2017 while Net Non-Performing Loans ratio grew to 3.2% from 2.3p% in 2017.

Meanwhile, Barclays Kenya expects to earn branding, real estate and transition expenses as it aligns to the Absa Group identity within the next two years.

A statement from the Bank revealed that, “In order to ring-fence the one-off costs during this period, we have adopted the normalisation principles to reflect the true business performance”.

The bank also launched Timiza, a mobile banking app, which has hit 2 million customers since it was launched four months ago.