Standard Chartered Bank of Kenya’s profits dropped by 10.5 percent in the first three months of 2018.
The Bank registered net earnings of 1.8 billion shillings compared to 2 billion shillings at the same time in 2017.
The lender has attributed the drop in profits on higher expenses and provisions for a bad debt.
The bad debt for the lender rose by 38 percent to one billion shillings leading to a rise in expenses to 4.3 billion shillings or 15.4 percent rise.
Gross non-performing loans (NPL) increased by 15.7 percent to 17.7 billion shillings with the interest increasing to 6.8 billion shillings (an increase of 7.7 percent) due to investments in government bonds and bills.
Loans to customers decreased by 2.5 percent to 113.8 billion shillings with interest expenses jumping 16.4 percent to 1.9 billion shillings showing the effect of a 13.1 percent increase in customer deposits to 231.9 billion shillings.