Stanbic Kenya bucked the expected trend that banks will by dividend-shy after a year of the Covid-19 and became the first bank to announce their full-year 2020 results, and with an unexpected dividend for shareholders.

During the year, the bank, part of the largest financial group in Africa, set out to support the resilience of their customers, staff and the community. 60% of staff now work from home, and 80% of transactions are done on mobile phones. For customers, they extended moratoriums on Kshs 40 billion of loans, that benefited 7,200 customers, and that included Kshs 3.1 billion to SME’s. They also waived charges on digital transactions and paid out 400 retrenchment insurance policy claims. While the banking industry repayment moratoriums that were set in March 2020 lapsed this month, management, led by Kenya Chief Executive, Charles Mudiwa, said that 80% of Stanbic’s customers had reorganized themselves and resumed repaying their loans by December 2020.

Also, the second half of the year was one of recovery of growth and overall, they managed to grow deposits by 12% to Kshs 217 billion and loans by 4% to Kshs 158 billion, while reducing their cost to income ratio, from 56% to 52%.

Stanbic Kenya’s profit after tax was Kshs 5.2 billion, down 19% from the previous year, but the pre-provision profit was up 2%. The bank will pay shareholders Kshs 3.8 per share for a total payout of Kshs 1.5 billion. This is equivalent to 29% of their earnings, and the bank’s management said that, with its strong capital and liquidity, they should also support Stanbic Kenya’s shareholders. They retain a positive outlook for 2021 even as Covid-19 continues, amid the ongoing distribution of vaccines worldwide.