National Bank of Kenya has re-branded itself as part of a new strategy aimed at transforming it into one of the top tier banks in the country in the next five years.
Announcing the new move at a dinner in Nairobi today, NBK Managing Director, Munir Ahmed, said that the bank is seeking to grow turnover from Ksh8 billion in 2012 to Ksh31 billion by 2017, and become a diversified commercial bank with balanced Corporate and Retail businesses.
“Through this transformation strategy, we want to regain NBK’s glory and propel it back to the Top tier banks by growing our balance sheet, expanding our market footprint, managing risksand streamlining costs,” said Ahmed.
The bank has over the years relied mainly on business from government institutions and a strong retail focus. Going forward, Ahmed said, National Bank will aggressively strengthen its play in the Corporate and Institutional and Small-and-Medium Enterprise (SME) segments. “Our goal is to re-orient the entire institution into a well-balanced and diversified bank.
In addition, National Bank will open 30 new branches by 2017 and boost its agency banking network to 2000 agents.
To fund growth as envisaged in the 5-year transformation plan, National Bank will be seeking to raise more than Ksh10 billion in additional capital through a Rights Issue in the first quarter of 2014. The proceeds from the cash call will go towards beefing up the capital base to support the ambitious balance sheet growth and to invest in revamping and expanding its infrastructure.
“At the moment, we are well-capitalized. Our need for additional capital will kick in around the second half of 2014,” explained Ahmed.
National Bank also has plans to expand into the East African region by launching operations in South Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania and Somalia. “Our goal is to first grow and strengthen our presence in the local market before going regional. However, we have already commenced preliminary surveys of the regional market but we see it kicking off in the next twelve months,” said Ahmed.
To signal its commitment in breaking with the past, the bank has unveiled a new logo, adopting yellow and brown colours as opposed to the green hue its brand had long been associated with. “This is a new beginning for us. We are not only changing our look but also the way we do things by instilling a culture change across the organization to focus on customer requirements and deliver world class service. “As part of this rebranding exercise we will revamp our retail outlets look and feel which will lend itself to more efficient service delivery.” He concluded.
