Equity Group has posted a 24 percent decline in profitability in the first half of the year from Sh12 billion to Sh9.1 billion.
During the period under review, topline net interest income was up 17 percent to Sh24.6 billion up from Sh21.1 billion the previous year driven by a 22 pecent growth in loan book from Sh320.9 billion to Sh391.6 billion.
Non-funded income declined by 3 percent from Sh14.5 billion to Sh14.1 billion.
This was as a result of the waiver of mobile transaction fee in Kenya since April 2020 to drive behavior change towards virtual banking enabled by mobile technology; and lower transactional activity given weak economic activity.
Customers shied from use of Merchant Banking and Agency Banking as transactional channels with merchant transactions stagnating as commissions declined by 10 percent to Kshs.93.3million. However, retail digital commerce payments Eazzy Pay and Pay with Equity recorded 49 percent growth in cumulative number of transactions from 1.152 million to 1.719 million transactions as value of transactions grew by 52 percent to reach Kshs.9.8 billion.
