Tag Archives: bank rankings

Bank of the Year Awards 2021

The Banker magazine is announcing its “Bank of the Year” awards for 2021 today. The awards are grouped by different zones of winners for the Americas, Europe, Middle East & Africa, Asia and overall global.

For Africa, the winners for best bank in different countries were: Algeria (Citi), Angola (Banco BAI), Botswana (FNB), Cabo Verde (Banco Interatlântico), Comoros (Exim Bank), Democratic Republic of Congo (Trust Merchant Bank), Djibouti (CAC International), Egypt (Banque Misr) and Guinea Bissau (Orabank).

Kenya’s bank of the year was KCB, then Mauritius had SBM, Morocco (Bank of Africa), Mozambique (Millennium BIM), Namibia (Windhoek), South Africa (Nedbank), and Sudan (Omdurman National).

Multiple award winners include Ecobank (best in Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Togo), Equity Bank (for Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda) and Stanbic (for Ghana, Tanzania, Zimbabwe)

Finally, the United Bank of Africa (UBA) won best bank in thirteen countries across the continent – Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Zambia. The UBA Group also won the overall “bank of the year 2021” for the Africa region.

Top 200 Banks in Africa in 2018

For 2018, Africa Report ranked the top 200 banks in Africa by assets and revenue in a special issue of the magazine.

The list was topped by the Standard Bank Group South Africa (Stanbic) with $163 billion of assets. They were followed by First Rand and then the Barclays Africa Group with $94 billion of assets, that is rebranding to Absa. Others in the top ten were the National Bank of Egypt, Nedbank Group, Attijariwafa Bank of Morocco, Banque Misr of Egypt, Banque Centrale Populaire Morocco and the Rand Merchant Bank of South Africa.

Other notable banks in the list and their ranks are Ecobank Transnational (at number 17), the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (number 19 with $17 billion of assets), the African Export-Import Bank (27), United Bank for Africa Group (30) and Guaranty Trust Bank (37). Also, Mauritius Commercial Bank (38), BGFI Bank Group (55) and PTA Bank, a Southern African development finance institution that is nominally based in Burundi (at 57). Others were Diamond Bank (63), the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa – BADEA (67), the Commercial Bank of Eritrea (86 with $3.3 billion of assets), CRDB Bank of Tanzania (105), and Stanbic Bank of Uganda (157).

Kenya banks that made the list were led by KCB Group at number 46, with $6.2 billion of assets. Others that feature were Equity Bank Group (59), Co-operative Bank (76), Diamond Trust (78), Standard Chartered Kenya (100), and Stanbic Kenya (formerly known as CFC Stanbic) (115). Commercial Bank of Africa and NIC Bank who are merging were ranked at 123 and 131 respectively, while and I&M Bank is at number 132.

The report also has some general and country-specific reports that look at opportunities and challenges that banks in different countries face. These include Nigerian banks that were hit by oil price collapses and the rise in non-performing loans. Banks there like Diamond and UBA then restructured operations and invested in digital platforms like artificial intelligence assistants to enable customers to transact.

Ethiopia is profiled as an emerging economic opportunity after its political transformation under Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed Ali, with its banking sector is described as one giant cat – the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia – with many kittens (seventeen private banks including Awash and Dashen)

Also while African governments want banks to offer cheap finance to citizens, many of them are themselves competing with private sectors in their countries  for funding from banks (e.g. risk-free loans to the Ghana government earn 17% for banks) while other interventions like interest rate caps in Kenya has driven millions of borrowers to turn to micro-lending apps using their phones.

You can order the 2019 ranking report here.

Kenya Bank Rankings Part II

Bank rankings, following part I

September 2016 numbers used

11 Citibank

12 National

13 Baroda

14 Family

15 Housing Finance

16 Prime

17 Bank of Africa

18 Ecobank

19 India

20 Guaranty Trust (GT)

21 Gulf African

22 Victoria

23 ABC

24 Sidian Bank (formerly K-Rep)

25 Jamii Bora

26 Habib AG Zurich

27 Development Bank of Kenya

28 Giro *

29 Guardian

30 First Community

31 Spire (formerly Equatorial)

32 Consolidated Bank

33 Credit Bank

34 Habib Bank

35 Transnational

36 Bank M (formerly Oriental)

37 Paramount

38 UBA

39 Middle East
Missing from the bank rankings list

  • Chase Bank (in receivership)
  • Imperial Bank (in receivership)
  • Fidelity Bank *
  • Dubai Bank (in liquidation)

* exiting in 2017

Bank Rankings Part 1: Kenya’s Top 10 Banks

2016 was an interesting, but also a challenging year, with a few key events happening that will alter the industry and future bank rankings going forward.

Who are the top banks at the end of 2016? We should start having their audited 2016 results published over the next eight weeks. But who will top the bank rankings for 2016, and why? (last year‘s bank ranking in brackets)

September 2016 numbers used

1 (1) KCB Kenya’s largest bank. growing at 5% year, going to embrace digital in a few weeks. KShs 480 billion in assets, 21.7 billion in pre-tax profit, with Kshs 372 billion of deposits and Kshs 332 billion of loans

2 (2) Equity Bank. Kshs 380 billion of assets and 19.5 billion profit. Deposits grew 15% in the year but they have put most of that in government securities.

3 (3) Cooperative Bank: Kshs 352 billion assets and 15 billion profit. Coop is using digital and agents to contain costs.

4 (5) Standard Chartered: Kshs 264 billion assets and 10.7 billion profit.

5 (4) Barclays: Still keen on growing in Kenya despite parent Barclays having to sell off the Africa unit. Growing at 10% a year, Kshs 264 billion assets and 8.7 billion profit.

6 (8) Diamond Trust: Still growing at 20%, probably benefiting from the fallout at Imperial. Kshs 230 billion assets and 6.2 billion profit.

7 (6) Stanbic: Shed the CFC part of the CFC-Stanbic name 10 years after the merger

8 (7) Commercial Bank of Africa. CBA was the the largest bank by customer numbers, thanks to M-pesa powered M-shwari, but loans are flattening. Kshs 211 billion assets, 5.4 billion profit.

EDIT  9 I&M Bank EDIT 

10 (9) NIC bank. Kshs 156 billion assets, and 4.5 billion profits.

EDIT 10 (13) Citibank: breaks into the top 10. Kshs 116 billion assets, and 4.1 billion profits.

Just out of the top 10, is I&M bank and troubled Chase and National banks. It is important to note that all the top banks, led by KCB, Equity and Coop all embrace a mix of agency and digital/mobile phone banking as a basis for future growth.
$1 = ~Kshs 101

Kenya Bank Rankings 2015: Part I

Ranked by assets (and placing in 2014)

1 (1) KCB [Assets of Kshs 467 billion ($4.59 billion), and profits of Kshs 23.44 billion ($230 million)]

2 (3) Equity Bank

3 (2) Cooperative

4 (4) Barclays

5 (5) Standard Chartered

6 (7) CFC Stanbic Bank

7 (6) Commercial Bank of Africa

8 (8) Diamond Trust

9 (10) NIC

10 (9) Investment & Mortgages

==

Two banks in the news over their FY 2015 results

11 (12) Chase: Assets of Kshs 143 billion ($1.4 billion), and a pre-tax loss of Kshs 1.1 billion ($10.8 million)

12 (11) National: Assets of Kshs 125 billion $1.22 billion) and a pre-tax loss of Kshs 1.68 billion ($16.5 million)

$1 = Kshs 102