NIC Bank shareholders met for their 2019 annual general meeting and approved a merger with CBA bank, creating Kenya’s second-largest bank (by customer deposits), a day after CBA shareholders had approved the same deal.

The merged bank will have about a 10% share of banking assets, deposits, and loans in Kenya. It will encompass the two groups serving over 41 million customers and their banking entities in Kenya, insurance (CBA Insurance and NIC Insurance), investment banking & stockbroking (CBA Capital, NIC Capital, NIC Securities), and regional subsidiaries in Tanzania (both banks), Uganda, (both banks) and Rwanda (CBA) and Côte d’Ivoire where MoMoKash is a CBA partnership with MTN and Bridge Group.

Group Managing Director John Gachora said scale is important in banking and that by merging NIC, which is known for asset finance and corporate banking, with CBA, which has desirable mobile banking and high net worth businesses, they would be the largest bank by customer numbers in Africa. CBA will be 53% shareholders in the merged bank.

NIC turns 60 this year, and in 2019, their focus will be on getting to Tier I ranking through the merger, and getting regulatory approvals after they had obtained shareholder approvals.  Directors also got approval to effect a name change (already under consideration) and the right to dispose of up to 10% of the assets of the bank without reverting back to shareholders. They will also create an employee share option program (ESOP) to retain key staff, and CBA, who already have an ESOP for their veteran staff (that owns 2.5% of that bank), will fold itself into the new incentive scheme. Other conditions of the merger include obtaining a waiver of capital gains and stamp duty tax in Kenya, approval of regulators in different countries, and approval of landlords and financial partners.

EDIT In May 2019, The Competition Authority of Kenya approved the merger of NIC and CBA banks on condition that none of the 1,872 employees of the merged entity are declared redundant for 12 months after completion of the transaction.