At Equity, a Tech-Driven Strategy Begins to Pay Off

Equity’s income diversification strategy has seen the lender’s non-funded income account for 40% of total group earnings, against an industry average of 38%, for the financial year 2019. Equity, managed to register a 19% increase in non-funded income, recording Ksh29.9 billion in 2019, up from Ksh25.1 billion in 2018.

Equity Group Managing Director, Dr James Mwangi, attributed this significant growth to on improving the quality of earnings aimed at steadily reducing reliance on interest income. “Our strategy of improving the asset quality of the bank is hinged on a customer-centric focus that signifies a tremendous transfer of value to the customers aimed at enriching the experience.”

Quality of earnings

The performance was aided by technology and innovation, which saw the bank enhance its offering in this category. The outcome of this investment has seen reduced cost, lower risks, improved services, increased security, better flow of capital to areas of investment and more importantly, improved efficiency that serves the customers in real time.

“40% against an industry average of 38%, is a reflection that the bank is fully committed to enhance the quality of earnings and with the payments systems we aim at growing this income to above 50%,” added Dr Mwangi.

The Equity customer is the beneficiary of an array of technology based products and services with mobile based innovations increasing user interactivity. Among the most notable was Eazzy FX, Equity’s online forex trading platform, which registered a 100% growth in transactions from 2018 to record 2 million transactions whose value stood at Ksh 13 billion for the period ending 2019.

Equitel, maintained its growth momentum from 2018, by registering a 9% growth in value of transactions to record Ksh 622. 9 billion in 2019, a surge from Ksh 572 billion as per yearend 2018. The Equitel platform registered 267.7 million transactions within the period, an increase from 252 million in 2018.

From mobile to agency banking, Equity’s non-branch alternatives continue to gain momentum. The agency banking channel recorded the highest value of transactions outside the branch, which stood at Ksh 800.6 billion for the year ended 2019, a 14% increase from the previous year, where the bank registered Ksh 703.2 billion in transaction value.

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