Equity Group records 17% growth in H1 2025 profit after tax to Sh34.6 billion
Group says its four-year business transformation journey has started to deliver consistent quarter-on-quarter improvements, noting that it has registered the strongest quarterly performance in Q2 2025 of Sh22.9 billion and Q1 2025 of Sh18.6 billion both above the quarterly average for the last four years
Equity Group profit after tax grew for Half Year 2025 by 17 per cent to Sh34.6 billion up from Sh29.6 billion year on year driven by a 9 per cent growth in net interest income after an 18 per cent decline in interest expense. Total costs declined by 2 per cent driven by a 34 per cent reduction in loan loss provisions.
The Group has also bounced back to record a 4 per cent growth in loan book to Sh825.1 billion despite the challenging global, regional and local macroeconomic environment characterised by uncertainty, depressed GDP, growth rates, high interest rates, volatile exchange rates and high inflation. Customer deposits registered a 2 per cent growth to Sh1.32 trillion and total assets grew by 3 per cent to reach Sh1.8 trillion.
The loan deposit ratio remains favourable at 62.5 per cent signifying headroom in lending which could be supported by strong capital buffers of 16.5 per cent and 18.1 per cent for both core capital to risk weighted assets and total capital to risk weighted assets respectively and a liquidity ratio of 58.6 per cent confirming the opportunity for asset reallocation from cash and cash equivalent assets to higher yielding loan assets.
It a statement, the Group said its four-year business transformation journey has started to deliver consistent quarter-on-quarter improvements, noting that it has registered the strongest quarterly performance in Q2 2025 of Sh22.9 billion and Q1 2025 of Sh18.6 billion both above the quarterly average for the last four years, of Sh14.8 billion despite the muted loan book growth, geopolitical uncertainty and impact of culture, governance, systems, people, customer value proposition and transformation the Group is undertaking.
Equity Group Managing Director and CEO Dr James Mwangi said: “The execution of the strategic business plan has started to reflect on the balance sheet and performance of the Group in agriculture, mining, manufacturing, trade and investment, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that populate the eco-systems of the formal sector in these value chains and is likely to significantly and increasingly transform the structure and performance of the Group. Continued execution has resulted in transformation of the balance sheet structure and the resultant profit and loss structure creating resilience in performance.”
Equity Bank Kenya has seen its net interest margin rise to 7.5 per cent from 6.5 per cent, return on assets rise to 3.9 per cent up from 2.8 per cent and return on equity jump to 28.1 per cent from 25 per cent. Equity Bank Tanzania has seen its net interest margin rise to 8.7 per cent up from 8.1 per cent, return on assets rise to 4 per cent from 2.3 per cent and return on Equity grow to 27 per cent from 17.5 per cent year on year. Equity Bank Uganda has seen its return on assets jump to 3.4 per cent from 2.2 per cent and return on equity grow to 25.1 per cent from 17.1 per cent.
Equity EBCD has seen its net interest margin rise to 7.1 per cent from 6.9 per cent, return on assets grow to 3.1 per cent from 2.6 per cent and return on equity grow to 23.5% from 21.9% while Equity Bank Rwanda has achieved the highest return on assets of 4.1 per cent and a return on equity of 29.6 per cent and a cost to income ratio of 35.8 per cent.
Road to recovery
In Kenya, profit after tax increased by 40 per cent from Sh13.9 billion to Sh19.5 billion, net interest income increased by 18 per cent from Sh27.7 billion to Sh32.8 billion after 29% decline on interest expense to Sh18.3 billion down from Sh25.6 billion. Total equity grew by 22 per cent to Sh154.6 billion from Sh127.2 billion.
In DRC, profit after tax increased by 22 per cent to Sh9.1 billion from Sh7.4 billion. Loans and advances grew by 13 per cent to Sh275.4 billion from Sh244.2 billion funded by a corresponding decline in cash from Sh271.4 billion down to Sh236.5 billion. Total equity grew 28 per cent to Sh82.6 billion up from Sh64.8 billion
In Uganda, profit after tax increased by 40 per cent to Sh1.9 billion from Sh1.4 billion. Deposits grew by 5 per cent to Sh96.8 billion from Sh91.9 billion fueling growth of cash and bank balances by 11 per cent to Sh25.7 billion from Sh23.1 billion and growth of investment securities by 14 per cent to Sh36.8 billion from Sh32.3 billion. Capital grew by 9 per cent to Sh16.8 billion up from Sh15.4 billion.
In Rwanda, total assets registered 21 per cent growth to Sh130.1 billion up from Sh107.6 billion driven by 22 per cent growth in deposits from Sh77.7 billion to Sh94.7 billion and 23 per cent in loan book from Sh45.5 billion to Sh56.1 billion and 48 per cent growth in cash and bank balances of Sh42.1 billion up from Sh28.5 billion. Capital grew by 26 per cent to Sh19.9 billion up from Sh15.8 billion.
In Tanzania, profit after tax grew by 75 per cent to Sh1.1 billion up from Sh0.6 billion. Shareholders’ funds grew by 67 per cent to Sh10.7 billion up from Sh6.4 billion. Loans and advances grew by 19 per cent to Sh31.3 billion from Sh26.2 billion.
The Group’s loan book quality remains stable with Group NPL ratio having peaked to 14.0 in Q1 2025 from 12.9 in H1 2024 to 13.7 in H1 2025, driven by improvement in NPL ratios of Equity Bank Tanzania 2.9 per cent, down from 10.6 per cent and Equity Bank Uganda which registered NPL ratio of 12.2 per cent, down from 17.9 per cent.
Equity Group outperformed the Kenyan industry registering NPL ratio of 13.7 per cent against industry average ratio of 17.6 per cent as at April 2025, while maintaining an IFRS NPL coverage of 68.2 per cent. Group’s cost of risk declined from 2.6 per cent to 1.7 per cent year on year.
