Barclays Spend KSh910 million in Re-brand to ABSA, Posts 14pct Normalised Profit
Barclays Bank Kenya posted a normalised profit of KSh6.2 billion after tax for the nine months ended September 2019 growth driven in non-interest income and lower costs to grow its bottom line.
“To ensure the financial performance is comparable and to report the progress on the underlying business, KSh910 million has been reported as an exceptional item relating to the spend on the transition to Absa Kenya,” said Barclays in a statement Wednesday.
The bank will use the normalized profit in making its decision on dividend and therefore exclude the impact of the one-off costs for separation.”
Its total expenses declined by 2.7 percent to KSh15.7 billion, while non-interest income soared by 8.1 percent to KSh7.95 billion.
Net interest income grew at a slower pace compared to the fees and commissions, at 2 percent to KSh16.83 billion.
The bank said its investment in a new banking platform will allow it to be digitally-led African banking group with global scalability.
It reported that its transition to Absa Kenya by June 2020 has spent KSh910 million on costs.
“Over the next few months, there will be the introduction of Absa’s warm and vibrant red colour palette to the branches, ATMs and other assets.”
Net loans and advances to customers rose by 8.9 percent to Ksh.194.2 billion as customer deposits similarly rose to Ksh.235.4 billion from Ksh.220.2 billion in the first three quarters of 2018.
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“Normalized (without one-off costs) bottom-line performance was strong (+18.8% y/y) and we expect under its new brand, Absa, the bank’s aggressive strategy focused on the retail and SME banking segments will continue to pay-off,” commented Genghis Capital analysts.
