(Reuters) -Kenyan lender Equity Group reported a 13% fall in 2023 pretax profit to 51.9 billion shillings ($396 million) on Wednesday, weighed down by a surge in provisions for bad debts.
The East African country’s top lender by earnings, Equity increased its loan loss provisions by 139% to 32.8 billion shillings, it said, after its gross nonperforming loans nearly doubled.
Equity’s net interest income rose by just over a fifth, it said.
As well as Kenya, Equity operates in neighbouring markets including Uganda and Tanzania.
($1 = 131.0000 Kenyan shillings)
(Reporting by Hereward Holland and Duncan Miriri; editing by Jason Neely)
