Co-op Bank reports 33% growth in profit

The Co-operative Bank of Kenya has reported a 33 percent growth in its profitability to post a pretax profit of 12.2 billion shillings for the first nine months of this year.

The outcome has been credited to tight management of costs which resulted in a marginal 1.1 percent increase in its operating expenses to 14.6 billion shillings.

The bank’s staff costs declined by 7 percent, to just under 6 billion shillings.

This was achieved against the backdrop of the bank’s layoff of 160 staff in December last year.

Between January and September this year, Co-op Bank’s lending increased by 20 percent to 212 billion shillings.

This, in turn, yielded a 24 percent jump in interest income to 26 billion shillings.

Co-op Bank’s group Managing Director Dr. Gideon Muriuki said the bank is targeting to grow its profitability this year by between 28 and 35 percent.

“The re-organisation and transformation agenda that we started last year with Mckinsey has opened a totally new frontier for the bank. Despite this having been a difficult year, and indeed it is, it’s incredible that we are able to do a 33 percent growth in profitability when all the things we are doing are just beginning to gain traction,” said Dr. Muriuki.

“There is incredible potential to grow our business out of the 5.7 million customers that the bank has.”