A supervision report produced annually by the Kenya Central Bank (CBK), indicates that Kenyan banks operating subsidiaries in the East African region have fetched more cash from Rwanda and DRC.
The lenders accumulated a gross profit of Shs 66.13 billion in 2023 according to the annual supervision report which indicates that the earning were more than double last year.
Investiments in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda were the most lucrative after they accounted for 66.4%. The DRC market alone fetched a whooping Shs 30.1billion while the Rwandan Market raked in Shs13.81billion.
Currently only two Kenyan banks have presence in DRC including KCB bank with 109 branches and Equity group with 79 branches.
Details also indicate that the Congolese market grew the fastet having more than trippled from Shs 9.78 billion in 2022 with an expected higher growth prospect.
The annual report also revealed that the DRC accounted for 36.4% (Shs 402billion) of total loans by Kenyan lenders in the region up from 34% in 2022, indicating a growing appetite for credit and growth prospects in the country.
Uganda was ranked the third most profitable in the region with a gross total profit of Shs 8.89 billion followed by Tanzania which bypassed South Sudan bouncing from Shs 918 million to bring in Shs 5.64billion.
