Kenya's Equity Group pretax profit rises on non-funded income boost

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's Equity Group Holdings' pretax profit rose by just over a fifth in the first nine months of the year, helped by growth in non-funded and interest income, Chief Executive Officer James Mwangi said on Tuesday.

Mwangi told an investor briefing that pretax profit rose 21% to 44.3 billion shillings ($363 million) in the first nine months of this year, with non-funded income growing 31% to 41.1 billion shillings and gross interest income jumping 26% to 84.2 billion shillings.

Mwangi expects the growth in non-funded income, largely driven by trade finance, to continue in future.

"It grew faster than interest income. This is not a one-off. It is the new normal," he said.

Equity also operates in Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, and has a representative office in Ethiopia.

The bank said its total assets grew 15% to 1.36 trillion shillings, while customer deposits were up by the same margin to 1 trillion shillings.

($1 = 122.1000 Kenyan shillings)

(Reporting by George Obulutsa; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Uttaresh.V)