GROWTH

Equity Bank hits new milestone with Sh1 trillion deposits

It was at Sh970.9 billion in June.

In Summary

•The bank has positioned itself as a save and secure place for the customers through its business model.

•For instance, it does not charge any monthly fees like ledger fees, account opening balance, account maintenance fees.

Equity Group MD James Mwangi
Equity Group MD James Mwangi
Image: Handout

Equity Bank’s depositors have saved over Sh1 trillion with the lender, making the financial institution the first one in the East Africa to cross this mark.

This is one of the key highlights expected to be announced Tuesday when the bank releases its Q3 results.

By end of June 2022, Equity’s customer deposits were valued at Sh970.9 billion, just Sh29.1 billion shy of the Sh1 trillion mark.

According to a highly placed source at the bank who requested to remain anonymous, as the results were yet to be approved by the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), the lender has been mobilising an average of Sh324 million per day in the past quarter.

This is yet another accolade for the biggest bank in East and Central Africa in terms of assets, after it became the first in the region to hit Sh1 trillion assets in August 2020.

The bank has positioned itself as a save and secure place for the customers through its business model.

For instance, it does not charge any monthly fees like ledger fees, account opening balance, account maintenance fees.

It is accessible, convenient and affordable with 342 branches, nearly 700 ATMs, over 65 000 agents over 41,000 POS merchants.

The bank had not responded to our queries about its new milestone by the time of going to press.

The Star had sought to understand what the lender was doing differently to lead other financial institutions in the region.

While releasing half year results for 2022, Equity Bank Group MD and CEO James Mwangi said the bank had seen its growth in deposits and profitability as a result of standing with its customers to survive, and recover from the economic effects of Covid-19.

KCB Bank, which released its results last week, had deposits of Sh922.3 billion by end of September 2022 while the third placed bank, Co-op Bank had Sh432 billion.

As at December 2019, Equity Bank Group customers grew from 14 million customers to over 17.8 million customers while the banking industry for instance lost four million customers.

The balance sheet within the same period grew from Sh673billion to over Sh1.3 trillion by June, 30 2022 a growth of 100 per cent.

Share capital has grown from Sh111 billion to over Sh17 billion by June 2022 making Equity the most capitalised bank in the region.

The lender reported Sh24.4 billion in after tax profit for the first six months of the year and is expected to announce the largest profit for the first nine months on Tuesday.

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