DIAMOND Trust Bank has said it would soon roll out branches in all major towns in East Africa.

The bank’s chairman Mah-mood Manji said this was in line with the bank’s expansion strategy and was expected to meet the ever increasing customer demands for quality banking products and services.

Manji said the bank had embarked upon an aggres-sive regional expansion pro-gramme which would “in the not-too-distant future” place the bank among the top banks in the East African region. Last week, the bank an-nounced a 78 per cent increase

in pre-tax profits for the first nine months of the year. The bank posted Sh818 million up from Sh459 million recorded in the same period last year. The bank’s share closed the day on Friday at Sh84.50.

Established more than 50 years ago as an asset finance bank, DTB has grown into a public quoted commercial bank offering a wide range of banking services. It has seven branches in Kenya and recent-ly opened two new branches in Nairobi.

It has four branches in Tan-zania and two in Uganda. Six more branches are planned for East Africa during the

next five months. The general manager in charge of asset fi-nance and insurance premium finance Kennedy Nyakomitta said the bank’s hire purchase book was expected to grow significantly given the bank’s quick process for finance ap-plications which he said was the best in the market.

“We believe we can sig-nificantly increase our market share because we have the best appraisal process in place which ensures our customers get feedback on their applica-tions in a very short time,” said Nyakomitta. DTBK was listed on the Nairobi Stock Exchange in 1972.

ThE Nairobi Stock Exchange is ready to activate the Wide Area Network to facilitate remote trading, once the Capital Markets Authority approves the amended trading rules.

The NSE had earlier indi-cated that the system would be implemented at the begin-ning of this month but was delayed by some technical complexities which have now been solved.

The NSE Chairman Jimnah Mbaru said in a statement that remote trading requires a minor change in the trading rules for which an approval is being sought from CMA.

Mbaru said the trading rules require that all client orders be entered into the sys-tem from the trading floor at NSE. however, he added that an amendment is necessary to allow orders to be entered at remote sites in the offices of stock brokers.

Mbaru assured the market that the WAN system was ready for implementation and NSE was just waiting for a final approval from CMA to go live.

he said as part of the preparation process, tests had been conducted to ensure the system worked smoothly.

he added that they had held a workshop for NSE-member firms and other stakeholders such as the Central Depository and Settlement Corporation and custodian banks to familiarise them with the system.

Mbaru said the implemen-tation of the WAN, which cost the bourse Sh35 million was a major milestone for NSE as it marked the second phase of the Automated Trad-ing System implemented in September 2006.

by peter kiragu

ThE Kenya Commercial Bank has put in place a system that speeds up the process of loan applications.

The facility installed by the Global Risk Solutions and known as Credit Quest, makes the bank the first one in Africa to implement such a product.

It will help the bank migrate from the paper and manual process of loan application assessment and thereby make the process more faster and efficient.

“In the bigger scheme of things, it is part of our initia-tive to automate operations and modernise our informa-tion technology systems for speed and efficiency,” said KCB’s Group chief executive Martin Oduor-Otieno during

the launch of the product at a Nairobi hotel. The system comes at a time when the bank is witnessing significant growth in the number of loan applications as more and more of its customers seek funds for business expansion and personal development. Odu-or-Otieno said this had made it imperative for the bank to enhance their capability to process loan applications in the shortest time possible.

he said customers needed credit decisions on a timely basis and that with the new system, the bank would be able to undertake timely shar-ing and transmission of data to facilitate quick and well in-formed decisions.

The new system will also enable the bank to keep a track record of their custom-ers’ credit history for refer-

ence. Besides, the system will help in managing new credit facilities, annual credit renew-als and to perform periodic credit reviews.

Further, the chief execu-tive said, the bank was at an advanced stage in the imple-mentation of the Temenos T24 core banking system which is expected to change the way the bank conducts its business. he added the credit quest system would be inte-grated into the Temenos T24 system to allow for even more faster data transmission and analysis.

The Group’s chairman Su-san Mudhune said the sys-tem would be rolled out in all the bank’s subsidiaries in Southern Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda where the bank expects to kick off operations this week.

Practical tips on handling personal finance

NEWS YOU CAN USE, EVERY DAY.STAR BIZ22 NAIROBI STAR Monday, 19 November 2007

KCB TO SIMPLIFY LOAN PROCESS

Photo/PhILIP KAMAKYA

PhotoS/PhILIP KAMAKYA

NSE to implement remote trading

ThIS IS ThE WAY: kCb Chairman Susan Mudhune is shown how the new credit system works. (inset) kCb group Chief executive Officer Martin Oduor-Otieno.

eQuitY: being hit On the head with a

SledgehaMMer

SASINI (Sh16.70) It’s undervalued. They have just opened their first life-style coffee shops. They have momentum and the share is cheap.

EqUITY BANK (Sh134.00) Buy more, its still cheap.

hFCK (Sh33.25) Buy, it was a mortgage business without capital. Now it has.

ICDC (Sh26.75) It’s very cheap.

KENYA RE (Sh15.20)Buy, management is making good investment decisions

Shares go up and down and readers are advised that this column represents Mr Satchu’s personal opinions.

4 TO BUY

t

dtb group chairman Mahmood Manji

DTB announces expansion plans

WhaT I have found is that markets can remain ‘mispriced’ for a very long time; either overpriced or underpriced. and the cost of sitting tight waiting for the market to reprice can be a lonely and sometimes very drawn out affair.

Quite often those participants who are up close and personal with the market in question miss the big picture until an event occurs and then the penny drops big time.

Those up close to our bourse, have all to a man and woman been sitting tight with their cash expecting to pick up bargains ahead of the Safaricom IPO. When everyone is seeing things one way, the chance of that expectation occurring is considerably reduced.

Last week, Equity Bank announced that it was selling 24.99 per cent of its stakes to a group, that includes american investor George Soros, for Sh11 billion.

This is the largest one off investment in our country since independence! This is that totemic event, the signal that our market has extraordinary value and that

global investors are actively aware and that they are putting cash down on the table.

I have been recommending Equity Bank ad nauseam and I congratulate it on vaulting to the No.1 capitalised bank in Kenya. It is a moment for all of us to be proud that one of our own has scaled such a peak.

Not so long ago there was a laughable sms going around trashing everything the bank has achieved and insinuating all kinds of shenanigans; I spent a good amount of my time dealing with panicking ‘wildebeests’ basically ready to bail out My point is, if you do not do your research, you will be easily panic and you will end up making your broker rich and yourself a pauper.

Equity’s announcement is just the start and the dam has now burst. For an investor, this event is like being hit in my head with a sledgehammer.

Aly-Khan Satchu www.rich.co.ke is the author of Anyone Can Be Rich, available in local bookshops.