Gachora is not JM. The latter has a significant equity stake. Gachora's pay was 3x JM's in a year when NIC did worse than the prior year.

[quote=obiero][quote=xtina]NCBA adds branches in expansion drive


NCBA Group will open at least 10 new branches in Kenya next year as it sets eyes on expanding lending to small and medium-sized businesses.

The lender will set up the new branches in Nairobi and Mombasa where it already has a presence and in four other counties, which it will be entering for the first time.

This will raise its branch network to 95, spread across 21 counties.

The lender, which emerged from the combination of the former NIC Group and CBA Group, currently has 85 physical branches in 17 counties.

Group Managing director John Gachora said the branches will be smaller in size and serve more as sales centres as opposed to full service centres.

“You will see activities as early as next year.

“By end of 2020 we want to have entered four more counties and added at least 10 branches,” Mr Gachora told the Business Daily in an interview.

He explained that despite the industry’s increased focus on digital as opposed to physical branches, market surveys show that physical branches still dictate customer decisions on where to bank.

“We will make sure the branches we open are not the traditional heavy duty branches but economical ones. Expect small and very affordable branches running with fewer employees,” said Mr Gachora.

He expects that this would help the bank to expand without having to incur huge operational costs. Mr Gachora estimates that the new model would see the upcoming branches run at about a third the cost of traditional outlets.

The merger has left the new outfit with branch overlaps in places such as Thika Road Mall and Junction Mall while, in some instances, the branches face each other across the streets.

Mr Gachora said these would be merged but added that the strategy is to open one or two new ones in strategic locations for each closed branch.



Banking is moving from bricks and mortar.
They should have tried to build on mshwari and loop.

I think in banking brick & mortar aids in attracting the new customer, alternative channels locks in the customer to keep using the bank. Most customers don't want to go to the bank to do a transaction but will open an account and do business with a bank they have easy access to should any issue arise that they may need to speak to someone physically. Small strategic cost-efficient branches make sense

Growing pains, I would imagine. This was expected as VVS intimated in an earlier post but eventually they should be fine.


sparkly wrote:
Sober wrote:
From the presentation done by the MD on the NIC-CBaa Merger, the shareholders will give it a nod.


As shareholders, we gave it a nod a long time ago.
The price rallied for a moment above 40 but has now dropped to 36.

There will probably be a huge charge to earnings for 2019 and maybe 2020 for restructuring, re-branding, staff reductions, ex-gratia payments, re-training, etc.

The gains will likely come from 2021 onwards.
Greedy when others are fearful. Very fearful when others are greedy - to paraphrase Warren Buffett

Their (nic securities) online share trading platform has been screwed up since the merger. For example, it has not worked optimally since the two institutions merged. Management issues apologies continually and they are never short of excuses! So useless...