ATMs are the most popular means of making withdrawals at 54.5 per cent, followed by withdrawing over the counter at 19.4 per cent/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, May 3 – Equity Bank is the lender with the least charges for consumers in the country.
This is according to a new survey by Think Business which indicates the bank was followed by its Tier 1 counterpart Standard Chartered Bank.
Habib bank, UBA Kenya and Cooperative bank of Kenya follow in that order.
According to the survey, overall, the cost of retail banking registered an 8 per cent decrease in 2017 as compared to last year, while the cost of SME banking decreased by 2 per cent.
Tier 3 banks had the highest charges in consumer banking class of business, 25 per cent higher than their counterparts in Tier 1, while banks in Tier 1 registered the highest charges in SME banking in 2017.
The survey also revealed that the average cost of banking has significantly reduced over the period. For instance, between 2013-2017, the cost of SME banking steadily declined by 16.4 per cent from a high of Sh105,077 in 2013 to Sh87,885 in 2017.
Additionally, the overall cost of retail banking also decreased from Sh12,087 in 2013 to Sh11,959 in 2017.
As far as banking is concerned, over the counter method is the most overall the most popular at 53.9 per cent, with the percentage being much higher in rural areas at 69.6 per cent, compared to urban areas’ 47.2 per cent.
Agency banking was the second most preferred method at 17.4 per cent followed by mobile banking platform at 17.3 per cent.
ATMs are the most popular means of making withdrawals at 54.5 per cent, followed by withdrawing over the counter at 19.4 per cent. Mobile platform withdrawals follow closely at 15 per cent.
A majority of Kenyans – 50 per cent – were also noted to make withdrawals at least once or twice per month. On the other hand, 22.2 per cent withdrawals were made 3 or 4 times a month, while 8.2 per cent made withdrawals 5 to 10 times a month.
M-PESA is the most popular mobile money transfer service at 97 per cent, followed by Airtel Money at 2 per cent.
Equitel and YuCash follow at 0.5 and 0.1 per cent respectively, whereas 0.4 per cent indicated they did not have a single preferred mobile money transfer service.
