Following an earlier ranking of the top banks based on their asset size at the beginning of the year, what are Kenya’s top banks likely to be, nominally based on asset size at the end of the year? In 2018, Interest rate caps and IFRS9 have had an impact on bank performance while the departures of Imperial and Chase banks were announced.

Ranking using September 2018 numbers 

1. KCB Group – Kenya bank assets of Kshs 594 billion assets (and group assets of Kshs 684 billion).

2. Equity – Kenya bank assets of Kshs 424 billion (and group assets of Kshs 560 billion).

* 3 CBA/NIC – combined assets of Kshs 425 billion (as at September 2018) – if an announced merger deal is approved and completed. CBA and NIC are ranked 9 and 10 by assets, and will leap-frog Cooperative Bank, Barclays Kenya, Diamond Trust, Standard Chartered Kenya, Stanbic and Investment & Mortgages (I&M) banks.

4. Co-op Bank Kenya – asses of Kshs 398 billion.

Other new and interesting bank changes this year; 

12.  State-owned National Bank is in search of a shareholder deal to boost capital.

15.  SBM Kenya. The State Bank of Mauritius completed a carve-out and rebranding of assets, staff, branches and customers of Chase Bank in August. For the third quarter of 2018, it reported assets of Kshs 75.5 billion up from 11.7 billion in January 2018. It now has customer loans of Kshs 12.4 billion, customer deposits of Kshs 53.6 billion, and government securities of Kshs 34.8 billion. SBM entered Kenya two years ago by taking over Fidelity Bank that had assets of Kshs 15 billion in 2015 for just $1. KCB also is expected to conclude a takeover deal for collapsed Imperial Bank in 2019.

39. Mayfair Bank was licensed to operate in June 2017 and began operations later in August. Mayfair now has Kshs 5.3 billion in assets and operates three branches in Nairobi and Mombasa.

41 Dubai Islamic Bank – Kenya (DIB Kenya) with Kshs 4.1 billion in assets was licensed in April 2017. It, is the third Shariah-only bank in Kenya, after Gulf African (No. 23 with Kshs 32 billion of assets) and First Community (No. 31 with Kshs 16 billion assets). DIB Kenya is a fully-owned subsidiary of Dubai Islamic Bank which is one of the largest Islamic banks in the world.

$1 = Kshs 102.