Standard Chartered Bank Kenya closed FY2025 with a 38% decline in profit after tax to KSh 12.44 billion, down from KSh 20.06 billion in FY2024. Falling interest rates, a stabilising shilling, and a KSh 2.6 billion one-off pension charge combined to compress earnings.
Despite the drop, the result ranks as the third-highest profit in the bank’s 119-year history in Kenya.
FY2025 Full-Year Results at a Glance
| Metric | FY2025 | FY2024 | YoY Change |
| Total Interest Income | KSh 32.83bn | KSh 38.82bn | ▼ −15.4% |
| Net Interest Income | KSh 28.89bn | KSh 33.27bn | ▼ −13.2% |
| Non-Interest Income | KSh 13.41bn | KSh 17.41bn | ▼ −23.0% |
| Total Operating Income | KSh 42.30bn | KSh 50.68bn | ▼ −16.5% |
| Operating Expenses (Reported) | KSh 25.47bn | KSh 22.47bn | ▲ +13.3% |
| Loan Loss Provisions | KSh 1.99bn | KSh 2.38bn | ▼ −16.3% |
| Profit Before Tax | KSh 16.84bn | KSh 28.21bn | ▼ −40.3% |
| Profit After Tax | KSh 12.44bn | KSh 20.06bn | ▼ −38.0% |
| Total Assets | KSh 363.49bn | KSh 384.57bn | ▼ −5.5% |
| Net Loans and Advances | KSh 154.31bn | KSh 151.65bn | ▲ +1.8% |
| Customer Deposits | KSh 283.45bn | KSh 295.69bn | ▼ −4.1% |
| Shareholders’ Equity | KSh 66.32bn | KSh 71.78bn | ▼ −7.6% |
| Cost-to-Income Ratio | 60.2% | 44.3% | ▲ +15.9pp |
| EPS (Basic & Diluted) | KSh 32.47 | KSh 52.65 | ▼ −38.3% |
| DPS Declared | KSh 31.00 | KSh 45.00 | ▼ −31.1% |
Revenue Contracts as Rate and Forex Conditions Normalise
Total operating income fell 16.5% to KSh 42.30 billion in line with FY2023 levels of KSh 41.73 billion. FY2024’s KSh 50.68 billion result was not a new baseline; it was amplified by two conditions that have since reversed: a high-rate environment and exceptional shilling volatility.
Net interest income, the bank’s largest revenue line, dropped 13.2% to KSh 28.89 billion. Interest on loans and advances fell 25.9% to KSh 16.92 billion as Kenya’s rate cycle turned downward. The bank partially offset that compression by shifting toward government securities, whose income rose 14.3% to KSh 11.15 billion on volume expansion. The government securities portfolio closed at KSh 96.90 billion, near the FY2024 level of KSh 98.00 billion and well above the KSh 63.83 billion held at end-2023. Interest expenses fell 29.1% to KSh 3.94 billion.
Non-interest income declined 23.0% to KSh 13.41 billion, with foreign exchange trading income taking the sharpest fall, collapsing 58.6% to KSh 3.42 billion from KSh 8.27 billion as the shilling’s stabilisation unwound the forex tailwind that had inflated FY2024 revenues. Lower transactional volumes and narrower margins in Transaction Services and Markets compounded the decline, partially offset by growth in Wealth Solutions. Assets under management closed at KSh 302 billion, up 29% year on year.
A 16-Year Legal Battle Lands a KSh 2.6 Billion Charge
Reported operating expenses rose 13.3% to KSh 25.47 billion, driving the cost-to-income ratio to 60.2% from 44.3%. The headline number overstates the deterioration. Underlying expenses grew just 4%; the gap is almost entirely explained by a KSh 2.6 billion past service cost from a pension dispute that has wound through Kenya’s courts for sixteen years.
The case dates to 2009, when 629 former employees challenged the bank’s computation of their retirement benefits, citing underpaid lump sums, missing cost-of-living adjustments, and withheld housing allowances. The Retirement Benefits Appeals Tribunal ruled against the bank in 2022. Every subsequent appeal — up to and including the Supreme Court — failed, with the final dismissal arriving in September 2025. The total estimated obligation stands at approximately KSh 7 billion, of which KSh 2.6 billion was recognised in FY2025. Staff costs surged 23.7% to KSh 11.20 billion; other operating expenses climbed 14.5% to KSh 10.19 billion.
Strip out the pension charge and the cost-to-income ratio falls to approximately 54%, within the bank’s historical operating range.
Credit Quality Reaches Its Best Position Since Before the Pandemic
Loan loss provisions declined 16.3% to KSh 1.99 billion, the lowest level since FY2019, excluding the pandemic spike year. The non-performing loan ratio improved by 200 basis points to 5.4%, with gross NPLs falling 26.5% to KSh 8.83 billion from a peak of KSh 23.28 billion in FY2021. That peak-to-trough improvement represents one of the more significant credit quality recoveries in the Kenyan banking sector over the past four years.
Balance Sheet Contracts but Capital Ratios Remain Fortress-Grade
Total assets contracted 5.5% to KSh 363.49 billion, continuing a decline from the FY2023 peak of KSh 428.96 billion. Customer deposits fell 4.1% to KSh 283.45 billion, though current and savings accounts made up 97% of the deposit base, a funding quality indicator that most peers cannot match. Net loans edged up 1.8% to KSh 154.31 billion, with growth in Corporate Finance and Wealth Solutions offsetting declines in Transaction Services, Personal Loans, and Mortgages.
Cash and cash equivalents halved to KSh 35.68 billion from KSh 72.66 billion, with a financing outflow of KSh 17.52 billion driven largely by the FY2024 final ordinary dividend of KSh 13.98 billion — at KSh 36.75 per share, the single largest dividend payment in the bank’s history, paid during the year.
Capital ratios remain well above statutory minimums. Core capital adequacy stood at 20.36% against a 10.50% floor. The liquidity coverage ratio closed at 300% and the net stable funding ratio at 155%, both comfortably above the 100% regulatory threshold.
Dividend Maintained at Second-Highest Level Despite Earnings Drop
The board proposed a final ordinary dividend of KSh 23.00 per share, bringing total declared dividends for FY2025 to KSh 31.00, down from KSh 45.00 in FY2024 but still the second-highest dividend per share in the bank’s history. The payout ratio reached a record 95%, extending a dividend streak spanning at least 38 consecutive years.
Leadership Transition
Outgoing Managing Director Kariuki Ngari will hand leadership to Birju Sanghrajka. Ngari’s tenure spanned a period that included pandemic-year provisions, the shilling crisis, a record-breaking FY2024, and now the normalisation of FY2025. Sanghrajka inherits a bank with clean credit, strong capital, and the structural challenge of rebuilding revenue in a lower-rate, lower-volatility environment.
The FY2024 Comparison That Flatters the Decline
The 38% profit drop looks severe in isolation. Measured against FY2023, the picture shifts. FY2025 profit of KSh 12.44 billion is marginally below FY2023’s KSh 13.84 billion, a far more modest decline than the year-on-year headline suggests. FY2024’s KSh 20.06 billion was the outlier, driven by the shilling’s depreciation to historic lows against the dollar and a rate environment that inflated interest margins simultaneously. Neither condition persists.
The more useful question for investors is not why FY2025 fell from FY2024, but whether the bank can grow from FY2025’s base. The answers depend on the rate cycle, the shilling’s trajectory, and the pace of loan book expansion, none of which the current results can settle.
