Bottom-tier lender UBA is the cheapest
bank for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), according to a newly
released banking sector report.
The Think Business
Banking Tariff Survey 2017, whose findings were released Wednesday, says
UBA beat large commercial banks in costs charged to its customers.
“In addition for the banks
with the lowest charges UBA
emerged as the overall lender with the lowest charges in SME banking for 2017,”
said Think Business chief executive Ochieng Oloo.
Paramount Bank was ranked the second overall cheapest lender.
The findings were based on commercial bank general tariff guides.
ABC Bank and Credit Bank tied in third spot while Consolidated Bank and Guardian Bank were fifth.
The Think Business tariff survey covered retail banking and SME banking business across 38 commercial banks.
Besides gleaning information from charges that the
banks levied according to set tariff guides, the survey was done across
six major counties between January 27 and February 2 this year and
featured 1,093 respondents.
The research was conducted
by Think Business in partnership with research firm Infotrak and
Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Kenya.
Cooperative Bank of Kenya
and Equity Bank
topped the list of Kenya’s biggest banks with the lowest charges in SME banking for 2017.
Housing Finance
emerged as the tie- two lender with the lowest charges for SME
banking in 2017, while ABC Bank and UBA topped tier-three and
tier -four as lenders with the lowest charges respectively.
The
survey found that the industry’s annual average cost of banking dropped
from Sh12,935 in 2016 to Sh11,959 in 2017, a decrease of eight per
cent.
Some 83.2 per cent of the respondents in the survey said they operated personal banking accounts exclusively.
On
the other hand 7.1 per cent of the respondents said they operated
exclusive SME bank accounts while 9.7 operate a mix of both
SME and personal bank accounts.
The survey found
that over-the-counter transactions remain the most preferable method
of making deposits, being used by 53.9 per
cent of banking customers.
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