I&M Group profit rises 22% to KES 10.2 billion as Rwanda and Uganda carry the half

I &M Group PLC reported a profit after tax of KES 10.2 billion for the six months to 30 June 2026, up 22% on the same period last year. Profit before tax rose 15% to KES 13.5 billion. Regional CEO Kihara Maina and Group CFO David Ngata presented the numbers at an investor briefing at the Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi on 27 August 2026.

I&M Group is a Kenyan banking group listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange. It owns banks in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania, holds a stake in Bank One Mauritius through a joint venture with the CIEL Group, and runs wealth management and bancassurance businesses alongside the banks. We covered its full-year 2025 results in April, when it posted KES 24.2 billion in profit before tax for the year.

The region did most of the work

I&M Bank Kenya is still the biggest piece of the group. It holds 69% of total assets and, on the group’s own accounting, 67% of profit before tax. Its profit before tax barely moved. It came in at KES 8.3 billion. Two things ate the revenue growth. Loan-loss provisions at the Kenyan bank rose 34% to KES 4.2 billion, and operating expenses rose 21% as the bank kept opening branches. That branch push is the same iMara programme we wrote about when I&M opened nine branches in one quarter to reach 61 branches across 21 counties.

The growth came from outside Kenya. I&M Bank Rwanda grew profit before tax 53% to KES 2.4 billion, and its balance sheet grew 44% to KES 118 billion. I&M Bank Uganda more than tripled profit before tax to KES 0.7 billion, a 225% rise, with net interest income up 61%. I&M Bank Tanzania grew profit before tax 8% to KES 0.6 billion. Bank One Mauritius went the other way, with profit before tax down 3% to KES 0.9 billion.

Together the non-Kenyan units accounted for 33% of group profit before tax, up from 25% a year earlier. For comparison, KCB Group’s subsidiaries outside KCB Bank Kenya contributed 29.6% of its group profit before tax over the same six months.

The four banking subsidiaries add up to KES 12 billion in profit before tax, not the KES 13.5 billion the group reported. The difference sits in the businesses the release lists separately: Bank One, which is a joint venture, plus units like I&M Bancassurance Intermediary, which made KES 425 million before tax on revenue of KES 527 million.

Bad loans fell, provisions rose anyway

Gross non-performing loans dropped 12% to KES 30.1 billion from KES 34.4 billion. The net non-performing loan ratio improved to 2.3% from 4.1%. Group-wide provisions still rose 38% to KES 5.6 billion, which I&M attributes to caution rather than deterioration.

Total assets grew 27% to KES 746 billion. Customer deposits rose 18% to KES 505 billion and net loans and advances rose 15% to KES 334 billion. Total operating income grew 23% to KES 33.7 billion. Return on equity moved to 17% from 16%.

I&M is still a smaller bank than the sector’s giants. Equity Group made KES 45.5 billion after tax over the same half, KCB Group KES 36.1 billion and Co-operative Bank KES 18 billion.

Part of the deposit and capital story is the bond. In May, I&M Bank Kenya issued the first tranche of a KES 20 billion Medium Term Note programme, essentially a corporate bond sold in instalments. It asked for KES 10 billion and received KES 23.2 billion in applications, a subscription rate of 232.26%. The notes started trading on the NSE on 28 May 2026.

Digital and MSME numbers

I&M says 92% of its customers are digitally active and customer numbers passed 1.1 million. Around KES 15.7 billion in financing went through digital channels in the half. Digital businesses and ecosystem partnerships produced 21.7% of retail and business banking operating income, up from 14%. Revenue from the MSME segment grew 41%. Cross-border business revenue grew 39% to USD 6.1 million, about KES 790 million at the Central Bank of Kenya rate of KES 129.47 to the dollar on 27 August 2026.

These are company-reported figures with no external audit attached, and the definitions are I&M’s own. “Digitally active” is not a regulated term.

The iMara strategy runs to the end of 2026, and I&M says it has already passed several of its 2026 targets: more than a million customers, over 90% digital adoption, a Net Promoter Score of 73% against a 70% goal.

The share price has done better than the earnings. I&M opened the year at KES 42.45 and closed 30 June at KES 69.50, a gain of about 64%. It has kept running since.