How KCB is helping East Africans to create wealth

The East African Community is home to over 150 million people.

The region collectively contributed a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Sh6.4 trillion ($74.5 billion), up from Sh1.7 trillion ($20 billion) about 10 years ago. The key sector drivers in the member countries are agriculture, natural resources and tourism.

The main goal of the EAC collaboration is to enable partner countries to attain sustainable and equitable growth and development, leading to improved standards of living of the people through increased competitiveness, value-added production, trade and investment.

Over the past eight years, the EAC economies have taken great strides to facilitate a stable investment climate, including the establishment of a business regulatory environment that is well suited to scaling up trade and investment.

This key undertaking helped to spearhead the regional growth rate of over 5.5 per cent in 2012.

In the same year, the regional macro-economic environment stabilised, with key indicators such as inflation and interest rates recording significant declines compared to 2011.

The result was the opening up of the markets and easing of cross-border trading, with key beneficiaries being Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs).

KCB has been at the forefront in offering financial services that are aimed at facilitating cross-border trade.

Stemming from a history of exploring and venturing into new markets, which started in 1997 when the bank opened its first international operation in Tanzania, KCB group now serves all of the EAC member states (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi) and South Sudan.

The group’s regional expansion is attributed to integration, which has been its long-standing goal and has featured prominently in its growth and development agenda for the last 16 years.

In order to be truly embedded as a regional bank, KCB undertook a bold move of cross-listing in the EAC member countries.

As East Africa’s first truly regional bank, KCB shares are cross-listed in the Nairobi Securities Exchange (1988), Uganda Securities Exchange (2008), Dar-es-Salaam Stock Exchange (2008) and Rwanda Stock Exchange (2009).

This has been key in not only giving the respective citizens a sense of entitlement, but also presenting wealth creation opportunities for regional investors. KCB remains amongst the very best performing stocks in the regional counters.

Cross-border trade

To fully optimise the regional financial requirements, KCB acquired a state-of-the-art core banking system that was successfully rolled out across the region. The system enables the bank to comprehensively cover cross-border and global trade.

The use of a common core banking platform guarantees all KCB customers seamless connectivity, offering real time online transactions across all its over 235 branches in Eastern Africa.

The platform not only enables customers to enjoy banking without boundaries, but also enables the bank to profile products specific to different sectors and drive innovation in bringing banking closer to the customers.

In addition, the core banking platform provides KCB i-bank (Internet banking), which enables customers to do all their transactions online from wherever they are.

To address the ever expanding financial needs across the EAC and South Sudan, KCB has undertaken key initiatives aimed at enabling seamless cross-border and global trade for individuals, start-ups and established businesses.

KCB offers expertise in Trade Finance by way of centralised trade service centres.

KCB Trade Finance services have earned a reputation of being superior to competitive banks.

In fact, the bank was named the “Best Trade Finance Bank” in Kenya by the authoritative New York based, Global Finance magazine, in 2012.

To facilitate ease of trade, the KCB product and service portfolio for customers seeking local and cross-border support is set to international standards that enables them to manage finance operations, liquidity and mitigate risks inherent in trade.

The services are grouped into four categories, i.e, Loans, Overdraft, Trade services (Guarantees, Letters of Credit, Tender Bonds, Import and Export Finance) and KCB Suppliers Credit (Bid Bonds, Performance Bonds, LPO Financing and Invoice Discounting).

The bank has a large cash book with assets in excess of Sh370 billion.

This enables it to not only finance corporate and SME clients, but also mega projects like construction of highways, development of real estate, bankrolling of the telecommunication sector and funding of the energy sector.

Not only does KCB offer the said Trade and Working Capital facilities, but it also goes the extra mile to ensure clients are served by versatile relationship managers who partner with them in their day-to-day business undertakings.

This ensures that a client receives 360 degree support.

Deeper regional integration within the EAC is now possible with KCB, the bank that offers robust support that opens up markets and optimises investment opportunities and job creation.