- The lender says digital transactions grew by 23.3 per cent to Sh2.2 trillion from Sh1.8 trillion for the first three months of the year.
- Digital payments grew by 171 per cent to Sh54.2 billion from Sh20 billion.
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At least 98 per cent of all Equity Bank's transactions have been outside physical branches, with digital transactions driving the lender's revenues for the first three months of the year.
The lender says digital transactions grew by 23.3 per cent to Sh2.2 trillion from Sh1.8 trillion while digital payments grew by 171 per cent to Sh54.2 billion from Sh20 billion.
This was during the investor briefing for the release of the Q1 results yesterday in Nairobi.
Speaking at Equity's quarter one investor briefing, managing director and CEO James Mwangi said the Covid-19 environment acted as a catalyst for digital transaction adoption.
"We emerged out of the three-year pandemic period as a strong digital business. The digital capabilities of the Group continued to be strengthened by the successful rollout of the interoperable universal digital payments platform," Mwangi said.
Pay with Equity (PwE's) transactions volume grew by 243 per cent to 48.3 million transactions up from 14.1 million.
Mobile and internet banking transactions grew by 270 per cent to 1.3 billion transactions up from 361.6 million.
As a result, the lender's transaction income for the period under review grew by 73 per cent to Sh.4.1 billion up from Sh2.3 billion.
The lender further notes 96 per cent of all transactions happened on third party and self-service platforms delivering 70 per cent of the total value of transactions.
"87 per cent of all loans are being processed on mobile channels and 82 per cent of all transactions are cashless," it said.
The number of people using mobile money in the country has been on the increase, with data from Communications Authority showing the total value of deposits held within mobile money services in the quarter ended on March 22 stood at Sh1.258 trillion.
Mobile money providers had 27.1 million active customers, up from 25.7 million in December 2020 or 5.3 per cent annual growth in new customers.
Nevertheless, under the review period, the Group recorded an eight per cent increase in profit after tax to Sh12.8 billion from Sh11.9 billion reported in the same period last year.
The profitability was attributed to the growth in non-funded income, one of its diversification strategies, which grew by 57 per cent to Sh18 billion from Sh11.5 billion.
Kenya's business contributed 53 per cent of the net profits while regional and non-banking subsidiaries contributed 47 per cent.
Democratic Republic of Congo contributed 26.6 per cent.
Mwangi said the profit growth speaks to the Group's embedded social trust capital that has seen its brand ranked among the strong brands globally.
"We have become a truly regional and diversified business. Our regional expansion and product diversification strategy has delivered an almost half split of business between the anchor Kenya business and the regional banking subsidiaries and non-banking business," Mwangi said.
The Group registered a 21 per cent growth in general business with the total assets reaching Sh1.53 trillion as of March 31.
Funding the asset growth is a 23 per cent growth in customer deposits with the proceeds deployed to grow the loan the book by 21 per cent.
Customer deposits grew to Sh1.1 trillion up from Sh900.9 billion while the loan book grew to Sh756.3 billion up from Sh623.6 billion.