NCBA Group Plc

National Industrial Credit (NIC) was incorporated in Kenya on 29 September 1959, when South Africa-based Standard Bank and United Kingdom-based Mercantile Credit Limited jointly formed the company to provide hire purchase and installment credit finance facilities in East Africa. Standard Bank held 40 percent of the venture while Mercantile Credit held the remaining 60 percent.[5]

In 1971, NIC became a public company and was listed on the then Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE). Barclays Bank of Kenya Limited (BBK) acquired 51 percent of NIC's total shares through the acquisition of Mercantile in the 1970s and Standard's NIC shares in the 1980s.[6]

Between 1993 and 1996, BBK divested its shares, selling 38 percent of its shares to the public in 1994 through a secondary market offering and the remaining 20 percent in 1996 to the First Chartered Securities Group (FCS). Because of changing trends, regulatory requirements in the Kenyan banking industry, and the need to meet growing customer requirements, NIC obtained a commercial banking license from the Central Bank of Kenya in September 1995.[7]

To effectively diversify into mainstream commercial banking, NIC merged in November 1997 with African Mercantile Bank Limited, which was then owned by FCS, by way of a share swap. The purpose of this merger was to allow NIC to enhance its market position, provide a broader and more efficient range of services to its customers, and increase the returns to shareholders.[8]

In 2006, NIC established an investment bank NIC Capital as a wholly owned subsidiary. In 2008, NIC through its subsidiary NIC Capital acquired a 91 percent stake in Solid Securities Limited and subsequently re-branded it to NIC Securities Limited. This acquisition gave NIC Bank Group a seat at the NSE.[9]

In 2009 NIC Bank Group established NIC Insurance Agents to offer insurance brokerage and bancassurance services. In the same year, the Group made its first expansion outside Kenya through its acquisition of a 51 percent share of Savings and Finance Commercial Bank, a medium size bank in Tanzania. In December 2010, the Savings and Finance Commercial Bank was renamed NIC Bank Tanzania Limited. In 2012, the group established operations in Uganda through NC Bank Uganda. This was a greenfield investment.[10]

In 2016, Commercial Bank of Africa Group announced plans to establish its mobile banking service M-Shwari in Ivory Coast in collaboration with the telecommunications conglomerate, MTN International.[11]

NIC Group logo prior to 2019 merger

In December 2018, NIC Group announced that it would be merging with Commercial Bank of Africa Group (CBA) creating Kenya's third-biggest bank.[12] The merger involved the transfer of 100 percent of the shares of CBA Group by its shareholders to NIC Group in exchange for 53 percent of the newly formed group making the deal a reverse merger.[13]

The Transaction was approved by the Kenyan regulators and shareholders by April 2019.[14][15] As of May 2019, the merged group was still operating two sets of banks in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania but was in the process of seeking regulatory approval to merge these business so that they can have one bank in each country and a group re-branding.[16]