The banking order in Kenya is shifting, and nowhere is the evidence more stark than in a single line on two balance sheets filed simultaneously with the Central Bank of Kenya. In the quarter ended March 2026, I&M Group’s total assets crossed Sh742.5 billion, overtaking NCBA Group’s Sh741.1 billion to knock the dynasty bank out of the fourth position it had occupied for years.
The gap is narrow, barely Sh1.4 billion, but the direction of travel is not. NCBA’s balance sheet has been contracting for several consecutive reporting periods while rivals have expanded. That is not a statistical blip.
That is a structural signal, and prudent depositors, investors and counterparties would be wise to read it carefully before their next engagement with this institution.
NCBA has spent the past eighteen months producing press releases about profits and digital lending volumes while quietly glossing over the fact that the asset base on which those profits sit is actively declining.
The banking order in Kenya is shifting, and nowhere is the evidence more stark than in a single line on two balance sheets filed simultaneously with the Central Bank of Kenya. In the quarter ended March 2026, I&M Group’s total assets crossed Sh742.5 billion, overtaking NCBA Group’s Sh741.1 billion to knock the dynasty bank out of the fourth position it had occupied for years.
The gap is narrow, barely Sh1.4 billion, but the direction of travel is not. NCBA’s balance sheet has been contracting for several consecutive reporting periods while rivals have expanded. That is not a statistical blip.
That is a structural signal, and prudent depositors, investors and counterparties would be wise to read it carefully before their next engagement with this institution.
NCBA has spent the past eighteen months producing press releases about profits and digital lending volumes while quietly glossing over the fact that the asset base on which those profits sit is actively declining.
Total assets fell 5.6 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025 to Sh656 billion from Sh694.9 billion. By the mid-year results, total assets had shrunk further to Sh663 billion, down 3.8 per cent.
By the third quarter they closed at Sh665 billion, still down 2 per cent year-on-year. Customer deposits, the most fundamental measure of public trust in any bank, fell 9.6 percent in Q1 2025 and remained down 5.3 percent through Q3. These are not minor rounding errors on a growing franchise. They are the numbers of a bank that is losing ground.
To understand how a lender that emerged from the 2019 merger of NIC Bank and Commercial Bank of Africa with such fanfare arrived at this moment requires examining not just the headline numbers management presents to investors, but the pattern of governance failures, internal fraud cases, regulatory sanctions, and ownership conflicts that have accumulated in plain sight.
THE BALANCE SHEET THAT SHRANK
The numbers that NCBA’s communications machinery does not lead with are these. At its peak following the merger, NCBA commanded a balance sheet of nearly Sh695 billion.
By March 2026 that figure had settled at Sh741 billion, a nominal rise that masks the compound effect of inflation and the far more aggressive growth posted by every competitor in its tier.