The Co-Operative Bank of Kenya has been crowned as East Africa’s Regional Bank of the Year by the African Development Bank at Accra, Ghana.
The lender was awarded for overall excellence in banking in the region.
Chair of the African Banker Awards Organising Committee and Publisher of African Banker magazine, Omar Ben Yedder called upon banks to focus their efforts on strengthening domestic capabilities to finance growth of their countries.
“We need strong institutions and we need to start with our commercial and development banks. If we have learnt anything from the past two years, and even more so these last two months, it is that we need to achieve financial sovereignty if we are to own our growth agenda,” said Omar Ben Yedder.
In May, during the release of its financials for the first three months of 2022 ending March 31, Co-operative Bank of Kenya posted a net profits growth of Ksh.5.8 billion translating to a 56 percent increase compared to Ksh.3.5 billion that the lender posted during a similar period last year.
This was contributed by interest income which grew by 6 percent to Ksh.10.4 billion from Ksh.9.8 billion supported by increased volumes of loans and advances, as well as an improved level of recoveries.
Co-Op bank’s Group Managing Director Gideon Muriuki said the performance was driven by the group’s strategic focus on sustainable growth, resilience, and agility the bank will use to execute proactive mitigation.
The 16th edition of the African Banker Awards Gala Ceremony held May 26,2022 saw a total of 22 Awards present and more than 300 banking and financial services professionals to discover the winners of the African Banker Awards 2022.
Other winners included legendary Nigerian banker Atedo Peterside, founder of IBTC Bank, which he
merged with Stanbic 15 years ago, who won Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to
banking.
This year the Awards were sponsored by the African Guarantee Fund, Bank of Industry (Nigeria) and
the Trade Development Bank as well as Access Bank.
