CIC General rating up after Sh800m capital injection

CIC General Insurance’s outlook has been upgraded to ‘stable’ from a ‘negative’ rating following a capital injection last year.The capital injection nearly doubled the insurer’s previous capital base of Sh900 million to Sh1.7 billion. South African Global Credit Rating (GCR) also retained its ability to pay claims at an ‘A’ rating.GCR said the general insurance wing of CIC benefited from Sh800 million from its parent firm, CIC Group, last year that exceeded the Sh200 [...]

National Bank confirms Treasury push for its merger

National Bank of Kenya (NBK) has confirmed that the Treasury wants it to merge with other State-owned lenders, sending a strong signal that the privatisation bid that has stalled for over seven years could delay even more.The option of selling a majority stake of NBK to a strategic partner who can inject capital and boost managerial expertise at the bank has also been on the table [...]

State seeks Sh83bn commercial loans

Kenya plans to take commercial loans totalling Sh83.3 billion in the next fiscal year, with sukuk and diaspora bonds seen as the options. Treasury says the borrowing would be undertaken in a cautious manner to take account of the medium-term debt ceiling and foreign exchange risks. Kenya’s total debt currently stands at Sh2.4 trillion with about half of it being from foreign sources.Financial advisers in Nairobi also think Kenya should continue taking more debt as long as this is intended for infrastructure development and not for paying salaries or other recurrent spending [...]

Interbank rate drops after a 3-year peak

The rate at which commercial banks charge each other for overnight lending has fallen after recently touching a three -and-a -half- year high.CBK data shows average interbank rate stood at 10.27 per cent end of last week compared to nearly 14 per cent peak three weeks ago.The interbank rate dropped, having stood at 12.67 per cent in the previous week even as the amount transacted rose [...]

Shilling slips as energy firms seek dollars

The shilling was marginally weaker in early trade Tuesday, under pressure from demand for dollars from energy and other firms, which usually picks up towards the end of the month.Commercial banks quoted the shilling at 98.60/70 to the dollar compared with Monday’s close of 98.50/60 [...]

Total, Shell cede market share to smaller oil firms

Kenya’s top-three oil market majors Total, Shell and KenolKobil lost a combined four per cent market share in the first three months of the year as their smaller rivals gained in domestic volume sales.Total, Shell and KenolKobil had a 50.6 per cent share in the first quarter of the year, down from 54.5 per cent a year earlier according to data from the Petroleum Institute of East Africa (PIEA) [...]

Cybercrime tops Wangusi’s agenda in fresh 4-year term

Francis Wangusi is the first director general under the new Kenya Information Communications Amendment KICA Act 2013, which gave the CA board powers to hire the regulatory agency’s boss in consultation with the Public Service Commission. Fighting cybercrime, spreading the reach of ICT services to more Kenyans and overseeing the completion of migration to digital TV broadcasting will top Francis Wangusi’s agenda following his appointment as director general of the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) for a fresh four-year term [...]