Bank of Kigali Plc nets Rwf 14.6billion in first half 2019

Bank of Kigali Group Plc announced its financial results, indicating a profit after tax of Rwf 14.6billion, a growth of 8.5% Year-On-Year with Return On Average reaching 3.3% and 14.6% respectively for the period ended 30th June.

Releasing the results at a press conference, CEO BK Group Plc, Dr. Diane Karusisi noted that the growth was largely driven by the banking and insurance arms.

“The bank continues to demonstrate strong performance as it saw high increase of net interest income of 28.5% Year On Year due to impressive growth in our loan book and better diversification in our loan portfolio.

“The fees and commission have gone down due to on-going digitalization efforts to achieve higher efficiency, which in turn resulted in reduction of costs and elimination of some fees. The net loan loss has also gone up consequent to a couple of bad debts that defaulted. However, we are confident that recovery strategy put in place will address this by end of the year,” explained Karusisi.

She said that the bank is keen on bringing down the non-performing loans to below 5 per cent by the end of the year.

Dr. Karusisi highlighted that the bank’s latest innovation, IKOFI wallet has recorded impressive numbers with over 1,200 registered Agro-dealers and over 156,000 farmers; with a target of at least 5,000 Agro-dealers and 500,000 customers by December 2019.

The group served over 315,700 retail customers and over 23,800 corporate clients and processed over 1.2 million transactions worth Rwf 83.7bilion. The financial institution expanded with 68 branches, 96 ATMs and 1,891 Point Of Sale (POS) Terminals that accepted most international cards including VISA & MasterCard. The retail clients’ balances and deposits reached Rwf 165.1 billion as at 30 June 2019, up 28.2% Year-On-Year.

According to CEO BKTecHouse Claude Munyangabo, the digital power arm registered a net sales growth of 87% Year-On-Year from Rwf 261million in second quarter 2018 to Rwf 487million in Q2 2019.

“The bank’s sister subsidiary managed to avail URUBUTO payment system to high learning institutions including all colleges under University of Rwanda and we have also integrated all URUBUTO school fees payment with all BK digital payment channels as well as Airtel-Tigo Mobile money.”

The group’s latest subsidiary, BK Capital Ltd on the other hand, reported that its assets grew by 20% compared to previous quarter reaching about Rwf 3billion as at June 2019 mainly from growth in private pension fund management.

Among other factors that drove the bank’s growth was investing in upcoming local factories including Mara Phones, and 70Mw Peat Plant under construction among others, making Bank of Kigali the biggest financial institution to invest locally.