The Co-operative Bank’s net profit was 7.4 billion shillings (68 million USD) in the first half of 2021, an increase of 2.3% compared to the same period of the previous year. This performance is mainly due to the growth in interest income.
According to the financial statements of the Kenyan bank, net interest income increased by 18% to 18.8 billion shillings (172 million USD) while non-interest income increased by 24% to 10.3 billion shillings (94 million USD).
Regarding the loan portfolio, it increased by 11% to 302.1 billion shillings. The cooperative’s operating expenses, for their part, increased by 28% (4.1 billion shillings) to 18.7 billion shillings due to a 123% growth in provisioning for defaults. payment.
Co-op Bank Managing Director Gideon Muriuki said that “the loan loss provision has increased from 1.9 billion shillings to 4.2 billion shillings”, adding that “this increase is caused by the difficulties that banks are still facing in the Covid-19 environment ”.
The group, he points out, has cautiously increased loan loss provisions to 4.2 billion shillings in appreciation of the challenges businesses and households continue to face due to the economic effects of the pandemic in Classes.
In addition, the banking group informed that its other entities posted good results during the period considered. Thus, Co-op Consultancy & Insurance Agency generated a pre-tax profit of 433.8 million shillings thanks to the increase in bancassurance activities while that of Co-op Trust Investment Services was 47.9 million shillings.
