Barclays Bank Kenya has today announced an 18 percent increase in pre-tax profit to 6.3 billion shillings for the six months to June this year up from 5.3 billion shillings last year according to an official press release.

Total income grew 10 percent in the first half of the year to 13.7 billion shillings from 12.5 billion shillings in the same period last year. Net lending to customers also increased 10 percent to 101 billion shillings despite costlier loans in the six-month period with the Central Bank Rate maintained at 18 percent

On the other hand, the bank’s assets declined by 7.9 billion to 168.89 billion from 176.82 billion in June last year.

Speaking during the announcement today morning, Barclays CEO Adan Mohamed said that the latest results had contributed to enhancing the bank’s core priorities of Income Growth, Returns, Capital & Liquidity and Citizenship.

Barclays’ half-year results have left it trailing behind KCB and Equity Bank which released their half year results less than two weeks ago earning pre-tax profits of 7.8 and 6.8 billion shillings respectively. Barclays’ profit also grew less than the two banks with KCB’s pre-tax profit growing 45 percent in the six months to June this year and Equity’s by 32 percent.

Read more on KCB and Equity Bank’s results here.