Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) has ousted Equity bank as the country’s largest lender by asset size driven by KCB’s move to aggressively expand its foreign subsidiaries.

KCB’s total assets stood at Sh1.55 trillion in the year ending December 2022, this compared to Equity Bank’s total assets that stood at Sh1.44 trillion, according to regulatory filings.

However, Equity beat KCB in profitability during the period in review, with KCB indicating that it had not included the full-year profits from its recently acquired subsidiary in DRC.

According to revelations by KCB, the bank absorbed a Sh65 million loss out of its business in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for the month of December 2022.

The bank says had it subsequently consolidated a full year, it would have absorbed a profit of Sh3.2 billion from the DRC business.

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All shareholders eyes in both KCB Bank and Equity Bank will be profoundly glued to their Quarter 1 performance when the lenders release their results in due course.

In the year ended December 2022, Equity announced a banking industry-leading profit before tax of Sh59.8 billion, which was Sh2.5 billion ahead of KCB Bank’s Sh57.3 billion.

The revelations are evidence of the tight competition between the two lenders to become the king of the Kenyan banking industry as the two banks aggressively expand in the region.

Regulatory disclosures show KCB customer deposits stood at Sh1.14 trillion to beat Equity’s Sh1.05 trillion as the two remained the only Kenyan banks with more than a trillion shillings in customer deposits.

KCB widened the gap in net customer loans with Sh863 billion to trounce Equity’s Sh706 billion, as KCB’s shareholder funds stood at Sh200 billion against Equity’s Sh182 billion.

KCB boasts of 603 branches, the largest branch network in the region, against Equity’s 337.

Similarly, KCB Bank Kenya’s total assets stood at Sh971 billion compared to Equity’s Sh894 billion, with its revenue standing at Sh93 billion ahead of Equity Bank’s Sh86 billion.