Kenya’s KCB Group’s (KCB.NR) pretax profit for the first quarter of this year jumped 53%, helped by higher interest income, it said on Wednesday.
The bank, which also operates in Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda and Burundi, said pretax profit rose to 21.16 billion shillings ($160.91 million) from 13.85 billion shillings in the same period of last year.
Net interest income rose to 31.06 billion shillings from 22.06 billion shillings.
Gross loans increased 12.2% to 1.13 trillion shillings, while loan-loss provisions stood at 6.3 billion shillings, up from 4.12 billion shillings.
“This was as a result of downgrades in Kenya and the impact of translation of the foreign currency denominated book,” KCB Group said in a statement.
Total assets increased to 2 trillion shillings from 1.63 trillion shillings in the year-ago period.
KCB agreed to in March to sell its Kenyan unit, National Bank, to Nigeria’s Access Group.
($1 = 131.5000 Kenyan shillings)
By Agencies.
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