Equity Bank plans to be a trillion shilling bank in the next two years, a local media reported. The bank’s CEO James Mwangi has informed shareholders that the it will transition from a horizontal to vertical model.
It seems that Equity Bank is close to completing the Democratic Republic of the Congo commercial bank transaction. With that, it will become the largest bank in the Democratic Republic of the Congo over the next 18 months to 24 months.
More recently, the Equity Group Holdings appointed professor Isaac Macharia as the board chairman. Last month, the bank decided to stall expansion plans into Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania and Rwanda, media reports said.
Equity Bank had also demonstrated interest in Uganda. With the deal, the bank would have fully acquired shares in BancABC of Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania, in addition to a 62 percent stake in Banque Populaire du Rwanda.
James Mwangi, the Equity Group chief executive, told the media, “Our expansion is in two ways; horizontal and vertical. We have opted for vertical expansion where you deepen and then scale up your market share in the countries you are operating in.”
The bank had withheld approximately $89.2 million in dividend pay-out to complete the acquisition, media reports said. However, the protracted pandemic has forced the bank to pull out from acquisition plans. Q