Monthly Archives: December 2011

2011 Kenya Bank Rankings

Comparing to last year with the 2010 top banks

11. NIC and National Bank (No. 7 last year) both with Kshs. 70.2 billion ($790 million) in assets and profits of about Kshs. 2 billion as at September 2011. National Bank falls from No. 7 as it has been passed by some fast growing banks on the list. Quiet year, NBK has grown it’s loan book by 52% compared to a year ago, but had less profit than last year which is odd for most banks. NIC is about 28% larger than a year ago in asset and will have about 3.75 billion in profit for 2011

10. Citibank Kenya (9. last year) September assets of Kshs. 71.6 billion and profits of 3.25 billion in another quiet year for the bank.

9 Diamond Trust (10) September assets of Kshs. 74.6 billion and profits of 2.4 billion deposits up 35% and loans up 45% from a year ago but with expenses growing at a slightly faster pace than income .

8. Commercial Bank of Africa (8) with September asset of Kshs. 75.7 billion and profits of 2.04 billion. Corporate bank made new came under political rad on the banking side, opened new branches in new malls in Nairobi like Junction, Galleria and then has re-branded in October with new logo. as excepted a rights issue is planned to right a capital adequacy position

7. Investment & Mortgages (last year 11) September assets of Kshs. 79.5 billion and profits of 3.2 billion in a quite year for the bank except for its’ rapid growth and entry into mortgage finance.

6 CFC Stanbic (6) September assets of Kshs. 145.2 billion and profits of Kshs. 2.38 billion. The bank just announced a rights issue. Earlier in the year, has some board changes with new Chairman, and this is the first year of separation of the assets of the insurance from the banking

5. Standard Chartered (4) September assets of Kshs. 165.7 billion and profits of Kshs. 5.49 billion. This is one of the few banks to have a lower profit than a year ago (Kshs 6.1 billion). Opened new headquarters, but it’s automation of customers service has led to some customer frustration – retail and corporate

4. Cooperative (3) September assets of Kshs. 167 billion and profits of Kshs. 5.45 billion. East African Newspaper this week announced that they will withhold divided to finance capital growth and postponed a planned rights issue to 2013 – and it was awarded best bank in Kenya by the Financial Times of London

3. Equity (5) September assets of Kshs. 172.6 billion and profits of Kshs. 8.25 billion. Another award winning year for the bank who pioneered agency banking model which has been followed by KCB and Co-Op. In the news doe accolades for their CEO, a deal to collect park fees for the Narok Council in the Masai Mara, becoming the latest Kenyan bank to diversify to Rwanda, but also for an about turn with the rest of the banking sector when they raised their lending rates from 15% to 25%

2. Barclays (2) September asset of Kshs. 180.9 billion and profits of Kshs 8.9 billion. A quiet year of modest growth for the bank in danger of being overhauled by Equity

1. KCB (1) September asset of Kshs 273.9 billion and profits of Kshs. 8.6 billion. Increased it’s gap from Barclays, and matches Equity’s reduced growth rate. Emphasized connectivity across East Africa, had a management shake up – and with i’s regional presents, it has assets of Kshs. 322 billion ($3.6 billon) and profits of Kshs. 9.1 billion ($103 million)

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Guide to Bangui

A guest post by @Anahi_Ayala who visited this CFA-zone country, that was home to the infamous former Emperor Bokassa, and which now has another grandiose project from a modern-day self-styled emperor – Gaddafi

Getting There: From Nairobi, you can take a direct flight to Bangui that’s just over three hours, and a round trip costs about $1,000. Alternatively, you can fly with Ethiopian Airlines. However this is a longer flight – with stop over in Addis Ababa of 4/5 hours, then another flight to Douala (Cameroon) where passengers proceeding to Bangui are not allowed to disembark during a 1hr 30min) and then you take off to Bangui – and so the entire trip including layovers, is around 12 hours.

Visa’s are done before hand, and the process is pretty easy and they usually give 3-month visas. There is no tax to on arrival, but to leave the country you pay a 10,000F tax (~$22 USD).

At Bangui Airport, the customer system is pretty meticulous: They search the bag of each person, and if you have goods that they think you have to pay extra for they will start shouting crazy prices – But you can settle it down with some bargaining and perhaps paying a bribe.

Getting Around: A taxi to town costs around 1500F ($3). People normally use shared taxis (which fit in as many people as they can) and there are also buses which leave from the main bus station in Bangui and go almost everywhere in the country. These take long time to arrive due to crazy conditions of the streets and sometimes break down along the way. Another way to do long distance travel, is using cargo vans (People sit on the top of the cargo. Some of the destinations (like the north of the country) take around 4 or 4 days to get there, while others like Obo can take around 7 days.

I was always going around by myself and had no problem, but one needs to be careful anyway since here in CAR poverty is at the extreme: a teacher salary is around $200, meaning that a normal person get around $50 a month. So if you go around with $100 in your pocket and people see it, is not good. I have friends here that got robbed in the street, but never anything violent: people just take your money from your pocket when there is a crowd.

Corruption is also widespread so if you get stopped by a policeman and you are doing something illegal this can cost you a lot of money. The interesting part of this is that the local population gives you advice in the street if they see you are doing something stupid – like someone told me to remove my phone from the back pocket to put in the front, or at the airport they came to tell me that my luggage did not have a padlock and that it was advisable to get one.

Security outside Bangui is another issue. The road from Bangui to Obo (South East of the country) is often attacked by the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army), so no one really uses it (you can take a UN flight to go there, twice a week, which costs $100 per ticket and you need to reserve to see if they have space – maximum $15 per person). The route from Bangui to Bambari (North) is also often attacked by bandits – normally there is no violence involved, they just rob you, get money & anything valuable and then let you go. The entire 5 regions in the North of the country are controlled by different rebels groups and the government suggests not to go there. Only private charters go there and there are no humanitarian agencies working in those areas, only visited by the Diamond Mines people (who have no problem going in and out).

Getting around, you spend around 8000F (including eating outside) in Bangui ($18). Outside Bangui not more than 3000F ($6)

The local language is Sango, but each region also has a local dialect. The national language is also French, but outside Bangui, few people can understand it and it is rare to hear them use it, and no one understands English

In Bangui there are around 3 newspapers published which publish not more than 500 copies: the quality is horrible, as they are all politically driven and the news is distorted in order to favor the political side take by the newspaper. Also there are no newspaper in English.

Business & Infrastructure: Where to Stay: There are several hotels in Bangui, all very expensive and with terrible services. One of the best one is the J&M hotel, which cost around $100 a night for a single room. They claim they have internet but it does not really work properly. They have 4 different locations: the J&M one is the best one, the others use the name but have a lower quality of services and rooms.

Another hotel is the Hotel du Centre or Hotel Central. It also costs $100 a night and the service is terrible: rooms are dirty and everything is broken. The hall of the hotel looks like an old school pub and it smells old.

There is a super luxury hotel that is being built by Gaddafi (well, was Gaddafi). It is supposed to be super fancy, with swimming pool and super nice rooms, but I have no idea how they think it will stay open as there is simply no way they can sustain the costs as there are not that many people that need a hotel in Bangui!

Another possible place to stay, is a center managed by the Nuns, and is part of the main cathedral of the city. The center is supposed to be for the missionaries that come to work in the country, but they also host guests for short time. It costs around $50 for a single room, the rooms are super simple but clean and they also offer breakfast with the room. You can have lunch and dinner of you want too for an additional $10. The nuns are very nice and dinner, breakfast and lunch are all served in a common room and at a common table (fixed hours: 7AM, noon and 7PM).

Electricity is not reliable at all, and it often went away in the middle of the day and during the night. Every office here has a generator to survive. I counted in my office and on average the electricity goes away every 30 minutes or one hours, sometimes for short periods, but sometimes for hours. Outside Bangui there is no electricity in the main cities or in the villages: everything works with generators and normally around 6pm, depending on the places, everything turns dark. Likewise, with water provision, there is no water in the houses, and everything is taken from water pumps.

Communications: Safaricom has roaming here but I did not use it to tell you how much does it costs. You can register with Orange and Telecell for them to activate your SIM card, but this may take more than 48 hours for the activation to actually work. If you want to use a USN bundle for this, you need to find a unblocked one (Orange had no bundles available anymore when I was here). All those bundles are second hand Huawei modems: You may buy a broken one, a blocked on and so on – and once you manage to have one that is working, you need to go to Orange or Telecell with your modem, the SIM card and the computer for them to set up the parameters. For Moov they said you just need to send an SMS, but I will only believed it if I see it then, since here everything is different when you ask then when you actually do it.

Overall, the cost of an international call is around $1/minute and using data on your mobile phone is a nightmare with local SIM cards.

Food & Life (Bars): The main dish is fish (capitain) and something very similar to Ugali, but done with Tapioca. They eat a lot of meat – goat, chicken and beef, but almost no vegetables. The local beer is called Castel but they also have Sudanese beers and Mocop Beer from Cameroon. One beer is 1000Fc ($2.5) in Bangui and around 500FC ($1.75) outside Bangui.

Shopping & Sight-Seeing: The main shopping area is the market in the center of the city called Marché Central and it is just blocks from Bangui’s port. They have beautiful clothes and very good handcrafts. There is no such a thing as a shopping mall in the all country.

One place to visit in the country is the Les Chutes de Boali (Boali Waterfalls) which is around 2 hours away from Bangui. In Bangui there is the Musee de Boganda (Boganda Museum), which offers artifacts of the Central African Republic’s history, and a collection of musical instruments. Another thing to see is the Place de la Republique, at the very heart of Bangui, with its large white arch were built as a monument to Jean-Bedel Bokassa, the corrupt dictator who was overthrown in 1979.

Shockers: How poor it is, how miserable, how there is absolutely nothing and how devastated it is, and the fact that they eat dogs, cats, and rats. That’s weird.

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First World Problems in a Third World Country

Ory (@kenyanpundit) reigned some of us with a recent comment that people are complaining on twitter about a lack of parking at the Junction Mall in Nairobi, while there are people near there who don’t have enough food to eat.

I realized that it’s something that happens a lot. Today I spent the whole morning searching for cooking gas (LPG) which has been in short supply in Nairobi for about a month. Is that a superficial or a genuine subject worth ranting about?

Other common complaints on twitter include:
– Not having tap water or being caught in darkness when the electricity distributed by Kenya Power goes off (including both at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport – JKIA)
– MPesa downtime which are almost a weekly routine with Safaricom
– Bad service issues at the bank or with an internet service provider
– A delayed Kenya Airways flight
– Newly done roads that develop potholes within a few weeks
– Companies that don’t respond to email
– Satellite TV that cuts off when it starts raining
– The increasingly bad traffic (and bad driving styles) around Nairobi

These are hardly life altering situations to tweet or complain about – and seem like trivial first world problems in a third world country. But they are unnecessary inconveniences for busy people with plans and appointments who have become accustomed to things like having regular electricity & internet connectivity, the ability to send money by phone at any time to any corner of the country, the convenience of boarding a flight to Mombasa and arriving in time for a court case or business appointment & return to Nairobi the same day, not having to pay a bribe or tip to get good customer service from a government or private office etc.

They have expectations of service that, when not met cause a un-anticipated re-deployment of resources usually precious time e.g. six hours driving around town, burning (sometimes scarce) petrol in search of (LPG) cooking gas or having to call in a previous favour to accomplish a routine matter.

The sad thing about this is that (at least in Kenya) politics is the missing link, and people here become accustomed to have low expectations about political class (Sonko) and their decision making. This is a fatal assumption as the 2007 election period showed and as we grapple with unnecessary & expensive challenges of infrastructure, distribution, under-employment, inflation, corruption, taxation, the solutions require the adherence of the political class to leave the third world

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2011 Africa Awards

The award ceremony for the Awards took place in Nairobi on December 8. Sponsored by Legatum and Omidyar, this is the fifth year, and they received 3,300 entries from around Africa. Kenya has had numerous winners (AAR, Bio Deal, Colour Creations, Craft Silicon, Virtual City) , so it was not surprising that of the ten finalists, only one was Kenyan outsider (in financial services). Also it was nice to see and read about small and growing companies from other African countries that are not necessarily in the technology space

Criteria for eligibility consideration was the companies had to have a turnover of $1 – 15 million, a profitable track record of 2 years, at least 10 employees, not be subsidiaries of other companies, among other rules.

The overall prize of $100,000 went to Securico a woman founded security company that has thrived (edit) in inflation wracked Zimbabwe. It is an ISO certified company, with a turnover of $13 million and engage in diverse fields of security a workforce of 3,400 employees

There were six winners of $50,000:
– Chocolate City group which has a record company
– Expand Technology makers of smart card solutions from Mauritius. Their Kenya projects include Kenol cards and KWS Smart cards
– Pepperoni Foods from Nigeria
– SoleRebels from Ethiopia makes shoes, and are now available through Amazon.com
– Unique Solutions of Gambia which has grown from a cyber café to an ISP with reach in rural Gambia
– Victoria Seeds which grows seeds and has developed and trained a network of farmers in Uganda

Other finalists were:
– Cellular Systems of Senegal
– First Atlantic semiconductors from Nigeria
– Investeq Capital Kenya
The Africa Awards website has more info on the finalists.

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Celebrating the Cocktail Napkin

In Nairobi, there are thousands of conversations that happen at restaurant lunches or over evening drinks in bars. Most are mundane, sports related, money driven, contemplation of sex, and sometimes they are about business.

A lot of conversations don’t go anywhere beyond the bar. But out of a few of these, some will – through a chat, watching TV, or other exchange of idea – experience a moment of clarity (Think Pulp Fiction) – a realization of logic, or a plan or an urgent action to be taken.

However, by having one more drink or a new conversation, the idea is forgotten, or shot down or entrepreneurial innovation is mentally discarded as being unfeasible

One way to transform the moment of clarity into action is by using a cocktail napkin – i.e. sketch out ideas, plans, or action points to be taken after the bar session. Some great ideas initiatives around here, are the products of cocktail napkins like Praekelt and SwiftRiver.

So how can we celebrate the cocktail napkin? Kengeles Pub used to have a bell that they would ring, when a bar VIP walked in – perhaps the person who has had the million dollar idea can use it to signal that (i) he is not to be disturbed or distracted (ii) he has to dash out to start working on his life-changing plan (iii) he will settle the bill on his next visit!

Also bars can avail pens & classy note pads for aspiring people to jot down their ideas. This will help when (the next morning) the entrepreneur empties his pockets to find a crumpled, soggy napkin with illegible writing Also the note pad paper will look important enough that the spouse or maid about to do the house washing, will not throw it into the trash.

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Bankelele

Nairobi writer on Banking, Finance, Technology, and Investments

Monthly Archives: December 2011

2011 Kenya Bank Rankings

Guide to Bangui

First World Problems in a Third World Country

2011 Africa Awards

Celebrating the Cocktail Napkin