Co-operative named Bank of The Year in Kenya 2020

Co-operative Bank of Kenya has been named Bank of The Year in Kenya at the Banker 2020 Awards organised by the Financial Times of London.

The milestone follows the lender’s bullish online strategy which has seen it deepen efficiency and digital services. According to the organisers, as the bank implements its digitisation strategy plans, it is enjoying gains from increased efficiency and enhanced digital offerings to its customers.

“Products such as E-credit and McoopCash are continually upgraded,” reads the Award Citation in part. Bank’s support Financial Times also recognised the bank’s support to customers the pandemic.

The bank increased its assets by 10.5 per cent and net profi ts by 12.4 per cent in 2019, though Covid-19 is expected to take its toll on profi tability this year. “Despite the diffi culties during the pandemic, the bank has strongly supported its customers and employees,” the organisers said.

Co-op Bank Group CEO Gideon Muriuki said when releasing this year’s third quarter results that a total of Sh46 billion in loans were restructured to support customers impacted by the pandemic.

“We continue to engage our customers to support them through this period, by re-aligning the servicing of facilities, funding and transactional needs as the situation unfolds,’’ Muriuki said.

Despite the challenges, the lender’s operating income grew by six per cent from Sh35.2 billion to Sh37.2 billion while net interest income grew by 12 per cent from Sh21.2 billion to Sh23.6 billion.

Yesterday, the bank launched a paperless, end to-end digital forum which stops manual fi lling of account-opening forms. With only a National Identity Card, customers can through the banking system also confirm and validate their Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) PIN, take clear photos, and enable electronic signatures.

The system instantly sends a text message to the customer, providing details of the account, enabling the customer to transact with the new account via mobile phone. The will reduce contact on back of Covid-19, save on bulk paper work that the customer had to fi ll and reducing error rates that come with manual interventions.