(Bloomberg) -- KCB Group Plc said first-half profit surged 87% as Kenya’s biggest bank said it will resume paying an interim dividend.
Net income grew to 29.2 billion shillings ($226 million) in the six months through June 30, the Nairobi-based lender said in a statement Wednesday. It plans a dividend of 1.5 shillings per share.
While banks in the East African nation are operating in an environment where the high cost of living has hit consumers, there are signs of improvement, which may portend well for lenders. Inflation in slowed to an almost four-year low in June and the shilling rallied 21% against the dollar in the first half, making it the third-best-performing currency tracked by Bloomberg in the period.
The Nairobi-based lender with operations in Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo said its total non-performing loans rose 11% from a year earlier to 182.9 billion shillings while provision for loan losses increased by 20% to 12.2 billion shillings.
KCB’s non-performing loans ratio worsened to 18.5% from 17.4% a year earlier, Chief Finance Officer Lawrence Kimathi said in a briefing on Wednesday. That is above the banking-industry average of 16.3%.
KCB announced in March it would sell its National Bank of Kenya unit to Nigeria’s Access Bank Plc. The deal is nearing completion, Chairman Joseph Kinyua said.
(Updates with non-performing loans from fourth paragraph.)
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