Kimei pays tribute to CRDB family after decades of growth

19Feb 2016
Our Reporter
Business
The Guardian
Kimei pays tribute to CRDB family after decades of growth

FROM a loss making Cooperative Rural Development Bank in 1996 to one of the top three commercial banks in the country with gross profit of over 140bn/-, CRDB Bank Plc’s success story has become a privatization text book example.

Dr Charles Kimei

“We made a 1.8bn/- loss in 1997 but thereafter since 1998, we have been making profits,” said CRDB Bank Plc Managing Director, Dr Charles Kimei said in Dar es Salaam while launching a week of activities to mark the bank’s 20th anniversary.

Dr Kimei said the bank’s success story has its roots in over 2,600 committed professional staff members and over 1.8 million clients who have it has harnessed over the two decades. Dr Kimei who took over the troubled CRBD after privatization in 1996, said the bank had only 120,000 customers then who were served at 19 branches countrywide compared to 198 branches today.

“We started with 40bn/- in deposits and 54bn/- in net assets but today, it’s a dramatic story,” said the former Bank of Tanzania Director who has turned a largely loss making parastatal bank into a money minting machine.

With its slogan, ‘The bank that listens,’ CRDB Bank Plc has become a household name thanks to management’s decision to embrace technology which has led to the dramatic growth. “We started with no ATM machine but today we have 461 and still counting,” Dr Kimei who remains one of the country’s most successful bankers revealed.

Dr Kimei said over the two decades of growth, the bank has introduced a number of products including Tembo card being one of the first innovative products, Visa and Master cards, Diaspora, Junior Jumbo, and Malkia accounts, just to mention a few.

“But also in recent years, we have come up with Simbanking which has over 500,000 subscribers and another one million who have not completed registration,” the bank’s chief executive noted.

Director of Marketing and Research, Tully Mwambapa described Dr Kimei as a fire sight professional captain who championed sustained growth and development.
“Your able leadership has seen our bank grow from strength to strength,” Mwambapa said while also paying tribute to clients who have remained supportive to the bank.

According to a recent Serengeti Advisors annual banking survey, CRDB Bank Plc has over 20 percent market share and is the largest in terms of net asset value, deposits and number of ATMs. Together with NMB bank, they control close to a half of the domestic market.

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