KCB Group CEO Joshua Oigara has said the lender has no plans to venture into telecom business but was not refuting the idea outrightly.
Speaking during the firm’s 43rd AGM today at Bomas of Kenya, Oigara said the firm has no such plans but as what was reported a journalists own views. However he said the firm is doing business in oil and is already serving a number of customers in that line.
The Star Newspaper recently qouted Oigara on the lender’s plans to venture into telecoms and NFC-supported card payments to enter into Kenya’s transport payments bandwagon.
According to the Newspaper, Oigara said:“This is the space that the of the industry will be moving into going forward and we already have plans which we will announce at an appropriate date.”
Though KCB denies any plans to move into telecoms, it’s highly likely that several banks will want to consider the move into telecoms as banking goes mobile in the region. Combining banking and telecoms makes sense. If it launches telecoms service KCB would not be the first one, Kenya’s Equity Bank has announced it will issue out over 300,000 Near Field Communication (NFC) smartphones to restraurants, retail stores and supermarkets throughout the country to help push the cashless move.
Oigara was appointed as the KCB Group CEO on January, 2013 and was previously the banks Chief Financial Officer. He is also a Board member in KCB Bank Tanzania Board and sits in the Risk, Credit, Human Resources, Procurement, Transformation, Strategy and Information Technology committees.
KCB Group also announced it has been given a green light by shareholders to become a Holding Company, a mandate to own the shares of its subsidiaries and have greater ownership of the various companies under its stable.
According to the KCB Group Chairman, Mr. Ngweny Biwott, “A holding company brings with it various advantages as it ensures equality of the subsidiaries, ease in terms of compliance burden for the Kenyan bank by reducing undue exposure to risks of subsidiaries and monitoring and management of group risks is much easier.
The move also gives the bank operational efficiencies through group shared services. KCB is now in talks with the Central Banks in Tanzania, South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi on the same. KCB’s mobile banking service platform serves over 1 million customers monthly. During the year 2013, KCB Group reported a profit before tax of KShs. 20.1 billion, an increase of 17% over the previous year.
