The Cooperative Group has announced a 5.6% jump in its half-year earnings to Ksh.7.5 billion.
The marginal rise in net profit which keeps touch with the performance of other top-end banks including Equity and KCB is attributable to increased business diversification under ongoing risk-management.
Cooperative’s de-risking strategy which incorporates alternative revenue channels including bancassurance and leasing saw the banks non-interest funded income scale up by 25% to Ksh.8.8 billion.
At the same time, Co-op’s insurance agency and consultancy business raked in Ksh.353 million to the half-year balance sheet, while the bank’s investment trust business grew funds under management to Ksh.1oo billion.
Further, the bank squeezed out customer loans in favor of government debt to see interest earned from the fixed-grossing paper rise by 22 percent to Ksh.5.5 billion.
Like its peers, the Cooperative Bank has continued to shave its operational expenses on the adoption of digital solutions to see the majority 88 percent of transactions cede to alternatives such as mobile and agency banking.
Cooperative Bank has in the larger picture accrued benefit from increased funding in the first six months of the year with an additional Ksh.3 billion respectively in both borrowed funds and shareholder injection.
From the resulting change in gains, Co-op bank has seen its total assets cross the Ksh.400 billion mark and a corresponding solidifying of the Group’s capital to risk-weighted assets at 16.7 percent against a Central Bank coverage threshold of 14.5 percent.
