Commercial International Bank (CIB) Egypt is locked in negotiations to acquire tier III Kenyan lender Mayfair Bank, the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) has confirmed.
On Thursday, CAK indicated that it is assessing the Egyptian lender’s application without disclosing when it will announce its final decision.
Mayfair’s financial statements which tracked its performance for the nine months ending September this year shows that the bank controls assets worth Ksh8.2 billion.
During the period under review, the small lender posted a loss of Ksh250 million. The bank operates 5 branches in the country.
This announcement comes hot in the heels of the acquisition of the Moi Family owned Transnational Bank by a Nigerian tycoon.
In the last few years, the Kenyan banking industry has been the subject of multi-billion deals with more and more lenders seeking to navigate a tough operating environment precipitated by the now-repealed cap on interest rates effected in 2016.
The Central Bank of Kenya opines that bigger banks with a larger customer base will create more efficiency.
The recent acquisition of National Bank by the Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) Group, the merger of the Kenyatta Family owned Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) and NIC Bank to form NCBA, the third-largest bank in the country are some of the deals that have shaken the Kenyan market.
Equity Group has also been on the rampage acquiring small banks in other East African markets with great emphasis on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
On the other hand, banking supremos aver that Kenyans are overserved with more than 40 banks serving 47 million people.
The impact of the repeal of the interest rates cap is yet to be felt in the larger economy even as CBK and the banks maintain that they will not overprice loans.
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