Equity has been named among global giants in banking.
The lender has been ranked position 39 globally on return on assets, position 71 on return on capital, and position 149 on soundness (Capital Assets to Assets ratio), in the Top 1,000 World Banks 2021 by The Banker magazine.
The evaluation was derived after analyzing banks through eight categories: growth, profitability, operational efficiency, asset quality, and return on risk, liquidity, soundness, and leverage.
Overall, Equity was ranked 22nd in Africa and 761st globally based on its Tier 1 capital base of US$1,096 million.
Commenting on the ranking, Equity Group Managing Director and CEO Dr. James Mwangi noted that the ranking is an indication that Equity remains robust despite the challenging operating environment.
“These global rankings are truly an affirmation befitting the financial strength and professionalism of the Bank, as well as the measures we took in our response to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
He noted that at the height of the pandemic, they strengthened their capital buffers by retaining profits and withholding dividend payouts, took long-term loan facilities that strengthened our liquidity buffers, supported host communities and clients to mitigate the impact of the crisis on them by waiving fees and rescheduling their loans to match loan repayments to new cash flow patterns.
Equity Group, which operates in six countries, weathered the COVID-19 disruption to register a 98 percent growth in its 2021 half-year Profits After Tax to Ksh17.9 billion up from Ksh9.1 billion the previous year.
The Group, which is the largest bank in the region in assets, also reported a growth in total assets to Ksh1.12 trillion up from Ksh746.5 billion the previous year.
Customer deposits grew by 51 percent to Ksh820.3 billion up from Ksh543.9 billion in the same period, retaining the lender’s position as the biggest bank in deposits, market capitalization and with a customer base of over 15 million customers.
The Banker’s global and regional rankings have been industry-standard measures of financial institutions performance for over 50 years.
The Banker’s Top 1,000 World Banks ranks the largest banks by Tier 1 capital, a key measure of banking strength. In addition, they analyse more than 120 data points tracked by The Banker Database year-on-year.
The ranking is an invaluable resource for benchmarking bank-to-bank, as well as understanding the health and wealth of the global banking industry.
