Equity Bank Showcases Strong H1 2019, Digital Transactions Soar

Equity Bank has been doing a fantastic job in offering financial services to the people of Kenya, among other markets it operates in, including Ethiopia. During its meets, be it an investor conference or a financials announcement, the bank’s CEO James Mwangi, as well as other executives affiliated with the institution such as Finserve’s, has vehemently rallied for digitization of financial services to have the edge over local competition – which encompasses promises like making corporate banking a complete digital affair.

For some time now, Equity has been executing an innovative business strategy dubbed Equity 3.0 that focuses on digitization and virtualization, as well as augmenting customer experience and what the lender calls ‘disruption of delivery channels.’

In today’s staging of the half-year of 2019 financial reveal, Equity reported a 10 percent jump in profit before tax, as well as an 18 percent growth in total assets to hit KES 638.7 billion for 542.02 billion that was recorded in the same period in 2018.

The results further highlight the gains made from the aforementioned virtualization and digitization: the number of loans disbursed hit the 2 million mark, of which 93% were paid via the organization’s Equitel mobile money channels. Branches disbursed the remaining 7 percent.

As has been the case in the recent past, the lion’s share of banking transactions was performed outside the branch. That number hit 97 percent in the period under analysis. Eazzy Banking App, for instance, saw its transaction grow admirably, recording a 28 percent jump to hit 146 million up from 114 million recorded in the same period in 2018. Further growth was reported from Equitel, agent banking, Eazzy Pay, merchant transaction, and Eazzy Biz.

“Our customer-centric and ecosystem approach to intermediation has given us an opportunity to target our customer’s horizontal and vertical value chains.” He added, “The branch is evolving to an SME advisory center as the majority of our customers move to more convenient self-service digital channels,” noted Dr. James Mwangi, the Group Managing Director, and CEO.