Barclays is the first bank to publish it’s final accounts for the year 2005 and the results reaffirm the Bank’s #1 status in the country even though their balance sheet shrunk from 110 to 105 billion ($1.45 billion).

The bank’s performance dipped during the year and after-tax profit was 3.72 billion shillings, which was down from 3.85b in 2004. The Bank attributed the loss to the closure of branches and one-time retrenchment costs. Even as loans during the year increased from 63b to 66b, total non-performing assets also increased from 9b to 11.9b.

Also noticeable was the Bank’s fee & commission income dipped from 5b to 4.8 billion shillings which could be an indication that Kenyan bank customers are getting smarter about avoiding/minimising the amounts that banks can extract from them through charges. Barclays and Standard Chartered both earn about 40% of their total income from fees, while other banks like Equity, KCB, Cooperative and CBA are more dependent on such income.

With earnings per share of 18 shillings, the Bank was once again very generous and will pay a total dividend of 14 shillings per share. Barclays second and final dividend of 11 sh per share (1st of 3sh was paid in October) will be paid after their AGM on Friday, April 28 at KICC to shareholders of record as at 23rd March.