Equity Bank Dr. James Mwangi joins the World Bank council to tackle global job crises, focusing on youth and women's employment in emerging economies.

Equity Group Holdings made KES 45.5 billion in profit after tax for the six months to June 2026, up 32% from KES 34.6 billion over the same period last year. The group announced the results in Nairobi on 19 August 2026. Profit before tax grew faster, up 39% to KES 57.8 billion. At the current exchange rate of roughly KES 129.5 to the dollar, the after-tax figure is about USD 351 million.

The half extends the run we saw in the full-year 2025 results, when annual profit jumped 55% to KES 75.5 billion. When we covered the half-year 2025 numbers, profit had grown 17%. This year’s growth rate is nearly double that.

Fees and forex grew faster than lending

Total income grew 25% to KES 124.9 billion from KES 100.2 billion. Net interest income rose 17% to KES 69.3 billion. That is the income from lending, after the cost of paying depositors. The faster growth came from non-funded income: fees, commissions, foreign exchange and trade finance rather than lending. That line grew 36% to KES 55.6 billion and now brings in 44.5% of the group’s total income, up from 40.8% a year earlier.

The balance sheet expanded 20% to KES 2.16 trillion. Customer deposits rose 21% to KES 1.59 trillion and net loans rose 19% to KES 981 billion.

Loan quality improved as well. Non-performing loans fell to 9.5% of the book from 13.7% a year earlier, and provisions now cover 70% of those bad loans, up from 68%. Cost of risk improved to 1.4% from 1.7%. The cost-to-income ratio came down to 48.6% from 51.7%. Return on equity was 26.5% and return on assets 4.5%.

Kenya is lending again

Equity Bank Kenya made KES 25.7 billion after tax, up 32% from KES 19.5 billion. Deposits in Kenya grew 24% and loans grew 8% year on year. The more interesting number is quarterly: the Kenyan loan book grew 11% quarter on quarter, the bank’s first double-digit quarterly loan growth since the third quarter of 2021.

The release says Equity Bank Kenya disbursed 36% of the KES 101 billion in MSME loans issued in Kenya between January and March 2026.

More than half the business is now outside Kenya

Regional subsidiaries contributed 42% of the group’s banking profit and 47% of its banking revenue in the half, and they now hold 51% of group deposits, 54% of loans and 52% of banking assets. Equity BCDC in the Democratic Republic of Congo grew profit after tax 30% to KES 11.8 billion, Equity Bank Rwanda grew 12% to KES 2.9 billion, and Equity Bank Tanzania was the standout, up 82% to KES 2.0 billion.

Group managing director and CEO Dr James Mwangi tied the spread to regional economies. “Kenya is projected to expand by 4.5%-5%, the Democratic Republic of Congo by 5.6%, Tanzania by 5.9%, Uganda by 6.4%, Rwanda by 6.8%, and South Sudan by 20%,” he said in the results statement. Those projections are the company’s.

Equity Insurance Group, the group’s insurance arm, grew gross written premiums 24% and profit before tax 34% year on year.

Almost nobody transacts in a branch

Equity now serves 23.3 million customers, and 98.3% of all transactions happen outside branches, with 89.7% processed on digital channels such as the Equity Mobile App, Equitel, *247#, Equity Online and Eazzy FX. The physical network is now largely a cash and service layer: 410 branches, 886 ATMs, 92,572 agents and 1.4 million merchants. That shift is why, as we found in March, an Equity banking hall can run on two tellers.

The release also says 82% of staff have completed a generative AI course and that staff have logged 119,980 hours of guided AI instruction, part of the group’s case that it is becoming a technology company that does banking.

The full-year results are expected around March 2027. The lines to watch in that report are Kenya’s loan growth and the group’s NPL ratio, both of which have only just turned in the right direction.