Equity Group has reported a 14 percent growth in Profit After Tax for the year ended December 2017 to 18.9 Billion shillings up from 16.6 Billion shillings in 2016.
The Group now has a liquidity ratio of 54 percent, non-funded income contributes 42 percent, subsidiaries contribute 14 percent of earnings and costs have only grown 7 percent over the past 2 years.
The lender reported differentiated revenue growth of 2 percent to 65.2 Billion shillings up from Kshs 64 Billion shillings, despite the impact interest rate caps and the challenging operating environment has had on the banking sector.
Non-funded income continues to be a key differentiator and grew by 24 percent to 27.6 Billion shillings up from 22.2 Billion shillings’ year on year (YoY) driven by forex income, remittances, commissions, trade finance, agency commission, Amex credit cards and diaspora remittances.
In 2017, the Group crystallized its 3.0 Strategy of digitization through its digital suite of self-service tools known as Eazzy Banking. This saw an exponential growth of customer activity in third-party channels which now contribute over 94 percent of transaction volumes with recently rolled out Eazzy Banking App growing to 92.8 million transactions from 4.4 million YoY and a value of 77.8 Billion shillings from 3.3 Billion shillings YoY. Eazzy Biz, which is a cash management solution for SMEs had a rapid adoption in the market that resulted in a growth of 516 percent YoY with a transaction value of 139 Billion shillings from 48.8 Billion YoY.
Equitel continued to increase market share with transaction volumes growing by 11 percent to 251.6 million from 227.4 million YoY while the value of transactions grew by 32 percent to 480.3 Billion shillings up from 364.4 Billion shillings.
The Group’s agency network which has now grown to reach over 35,000 agents saw the transaction volume grow by 7 percent to 66.2 million from 61.9 million with value growing by 15 percent to 528.9 Billion shillings from 458.3 Billion shillings.
Diaspora remittances grew by 132 percent to 30 Billion shillings from 13 Billion shillings YoY due to an increased strategic partnership with payment partners including PayPal, Equity Direct, Western Union, MoneyGram, Wave, and Swift.
Income from Treasury Operations increased by 59 percent to 19.2 Billion shillings from 12 Billion shillings YoY driven by an increase in government securities portfolio to 128 Billion shillings from 100.6 Billion shillings and increasing its contribution to the total income by 25 percent.
The Group’s 3.0 Strategy and differentiated business model saw Total Costs decline by 2 percent to 38.3 Billion shillings from 39.1 Billion shillings reflecting the consolidation of efficiency gains of innovation and digitization of business.
Profit before tax grew by 8 percent to 26.9 Billion shillings up from 24.9 Billion shillings.
Total Assets grew by 11percent to 524.5 Billion shillings up from 473.7 Billion shillings YOY with Net Loans growing by 5 percent to 279.1 Billion shillings up from 266.1 Billion shillings while government securities grew by 27 percent to 128 Billion shillings up from 100.6 Billion shillings YoY.
The focus by the Group on the quality of the loan book saw NPLs as at the end of the year close at 6.3 percent compared to 10.6 percent for the banking sector.
Deposits grew by 11 percent to 373.1 Billion shillings from 337.2 Billion shillings as the number of customers reached 12.1 million.