Absa Kenya’s Profits Enhanced By Investments in Sustainability and Digitization

The year 2021 has been a good one for Absa Bank Kenya. In nine months to September 2021, it has registered strong growth in profit after tax, which saw it more than quadruple to hit 8.2 billion shillings from 1.9 billion shillings in 2020.

Growth in the SME sector, a strengthening macro-economic environment, quality of credit, and resilience in customer operations largely contributed to this impressive performance.

All the bank’s key financial measures showed a marked improvement. The operating costs, nonetheless, declined by 3 percent from 12.5 billion shillings seen in the third quarter of 2020, to 12 billion shillings in 2021.

Absa Bank’s balance sheet recorded good growth with the total assets in Q3, 2021 reaching 411.4 billion shillings compared to a similar period in 2021 where it recorded 387.9 billion shillings.

The customer assets and customer liabilities each registered 9 percent growth from a similar period in 2020.

With rebranding concluded, there was no impact on exceptional items this year. The heavy re-branding decisions are paying off in 2021 where the brand awareness metric shows a whopping 64% growth rate from where it stood in the last quarter of 2019.

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The brand awareness offered Absa a golden opportunity to showcase its rich history – and this long-standing heritage was neatly tied to Kenyans’ spirit of resilience and entrepreneurship.

Absa Kenya, did not, however, stop there. In its commitment to bring services closer to the customer, it conveniently used the ensuing razzmatazz to innovate and introduce new digital banking features.

It launched WhatsApp Banking, the first-ever in the country to serve customers better and give them an option to interact with the bank better.

Similarly, by rolling with the rapid transformation sweeping industries, Absa Kenya launched a digital platform that transforms all its services, processes, functions, and interactions while delivering a compelling customer experience and distinguished engagement.

With Absa Kenya’s banking app, one can easily access a wide range of services including buying electricity, transferring funds to another Absa account or a wallet among others. One can also manage the accounts using the app.

Across this transition period, the bank’s investments in digitization and automation saw it relaunch agency banking. So far, this investment has seen Absa increase its service points to 642 in Q3 of 2021.

These innovations improved the bank’s business environment, contributing to its impressive performance. All these changes were done in response to the contemporary customer’s need to feel a connection, enjoy convenience, and memorable experience.

Better yet, customers, today want to associate themselves with responsible brands whose stories have a resonance and they can relate to.

For this reason, it has also invested heavily in education and skills development where it has trained 170,000 youths in Kenya through the Ready to Work (R2W) program.

In its commitment to changing people’s lives and promoting a just society, Absa Kenya has increased the diversity of its women suppliers through participation in the Sourcing2Equal IFC program where women are coached and mentored.

Through inclusive financing, the bank has so far, through the Women in Business initiative, disbursed 200,000 Euros to support Women-Led Businesses.

On sustainability, Absa Kenya has made tremendous strides in embedding it in its business strategy. It became the first Kenyan bank to be recognized for championing initiatives that contributes to a green economy by reducing pollution and improving people’s lives.

Across its properties, the bank has achieved 13 percent less monthly consumption and 33 percent less in water bills. It is also looking at using its eWaste to set up 66 computer labs by end of 2021 and plant up to 10 million trees in the next five years to reduce the carbon footprint in the country.

Through these initiatives, the lender is clearly on a mission to expand its brand, its identity beyond traditional loan products amid digital disruptions, a discerning customer base, and cutthroat competition.