Equity Bank Kenya Board Chairman Prof. Isaac Macharia and Equity Group Managing Director and CEO Dr James Mwangi take a selfie with the new Equity identity at the Group headquarters in Upperhill Nairobi Kenya.
Kenya’s Equity Group and KCB have been named among the world’s top 500 lenders by brand value, helped by positive sentiments from their customers who rated them on factors like quality, reputation, and customer satisfaction.
Equity and KCB —also the largest lenders in Kenya by asset size— were ranked in positions 338 and 366 respectively by global brand valuation consultancy Brand Finance which assigned their brands a value of $388 million and $338 million respectively.
The consultancy firm describes brand value as the net economic benefit that owners would achieve by licensing their brand in the open market. It is, however different from the valuation of a company’s hard assets.
The lenders were measured on perceptions among different stakeholder groups, where customers are the most important, and business or financial performance.
“The growth in brand value of Kenyan banks is the result of their strong performance in Brand Finance’s original market research, which was introduced in the country for the first time this year,” said Brand Finance.
“High scores from the consumer survey have boosted the overall brand strength evaluation of the Kenyan brands, which in turn has boosted their brand value.”
The two Kenyan lenders have been growing their reach regionally, expanding to new markets in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan.
They have also established a large footprint locally cutting across corporate, retail and SME banking.
Equity and KCB are the most profitable lenders in Kenya, making a net profit of KSh26.87 billion and KSh25.2 billion respectively in the nine months to September 2021.
This was more than double the profit of Co-operative bank , the third most profitable lender with net earnings of KSh11.6 billion.
Among the 20 African banks from five countries on the list, Equity and KCB were ranked ninth and 11th respectively.
South Africa dominates with seven lenders —including the top six— led by Standard Bank which has a brand value of $1.583 billion.
Nigeria has five lenders on the list, but each ranks lower than Equity and only one is ahead of KCB. Egypt and Morocco each have three lenders on the list.
Globally, Chinese and US lenders dominate the brand ranking, with the Asian economy producing the top four led by ICBC with a brand value of $75.1 billion. The US accounts for the next five lenders, with Bank of America its top entry at $36.7 billion in brand value.
-Business Daily
