Yesterday’s half-year profit announcement by two of Kenya’s biggest banks saw Kenya Commercial Bank re-emerge as the country’s most profitable bank after posting 1 billion shillings more profit than Equity Bank which settled for second position after enjoying a brief period at the helm.

Official unaudited statements by the two banks released yesterday showed that KCB posted a profit before tax of 7.88 billion shillings for the six months to June this year compared to Equity Bank’s 6.88 billion. Only four months earlier, Equity Bank had shadowed KCB by posting 11 percent more profit than the latter for the three months to March making Equity the most profitable Kenyan bank this year until yesterday.

Profit & Asset Growth

KCB also showed higher profit growth than Equity Bank, with the former’s profit growing 45 percent from the same period last year compared to a 32 percent growth in profit for Equity Bank in the same period since last year. KCB remained the region’s biggest bank in terms of asset base, with total assets valued at 295.58 billion shillings compared to Equity’s 195.69 billion shilling assets.

Below is a table summarizing profit and asset growth for two of Kenya’s biggest banks in the past year:

[caption id="attachment_14473" align="aligncenter" width="465" caption="KCB & Equity Profit and Asset Growth"][/caption]