Gideon Muriuki's Co-op Bank posts best-ever quarter and says its South Sudan bet is finally paying off

Gideon Muriuki has a straight answer to anyone questioning his decision to stay in South Sudan: the numbers.

Co-operative Bank of Kenya posted a profit before tax of Ksh11.37 billion for the first quarter ending March 31, 2026, an 18.1 percent jump from the Ksh9.63 billion the group reported in the same period of 2025. Profit after tax rose 21.35 percent to Ksh8.41 billion, up from Ksh6.93 billion. The bank described it as the best single-quarter performance in its history.

Within those results sits a number that Muriuki has been working toward for years. Co-operative Bank of South Sudan, the group's only foreign operation, posted a profit before tax of Ksh99 million in the first quarter of 2026. That compares with a loss of Ksh47 million in the same period last year. It is the subsidiary's first positive quarterly result, coming after years in which the South Sudan operation absorbed losses and drew repeated questions about whether the strategic bet was worth the cost.

Muriuki has consistently held that it was. The Co-operative Bank of Kenya owns 51 percent of the South Sudan subsidiary, with the Government of South Sudan holding the remaining 49 percent in trust for the country's co-operative movement. That ownership structure, mirroring the Kenyan bank's own roots in the co-operative sector, is Muriuki's argument for why the model is right for the market even when the short-term economics are difficult. South Sudan carries the world's highest youth population growth rate and a banking penetration rate that remains extremely low by any regional comparison.

The group's total assets grew 14.3 percent to Ksh884.6 billion in the quarter, from Ksh774.1 billion in Q1 2025. Customer deposits rose 16.6 percent to Ksh612.2 billion. The group's customer base now stands at over 9.8 million account holders, supported by 222 branches across Kenya and South Sudan, 615 ATMs and Cash Deposit Machines, and over 16,200 Co-op Kwa Jirani agents. Co-op Bank was separately listed among Africa's Fastest Growing Companies 2026 by the Financial Times of London and named Best Bank in Kenya 2026 by Global Finance in the same period.

Muriuki attributed the performance to the group's 2025-2029 Good to Great strategy and its Soaring Eagle Transformation Agenda, describing the results as validating the universal banking model the group has been building across its banking, fund management, insurance and stock brokerage subsidiaries.

The results arrive as Co-op Bank prepares for a significant structural change. In April, the bank received board approval for a plan to reconstitute itself as a non-operating holding company, with a new subsidiary, Co-op Bank Kenya Limited, taking on the core banking operations. The restructuring, which still requires regulatory approvals from the Central Bank of Kenya, the Capital Markets Authority and the Registrar of Companies, is designed to create a scalable platform for further expansion, including into new regional markets beyond South Sudan.

The South Sudan subsidiary's first profitable quarter strengthens the case for that expansion by demonstrating that the bank's model can work in a frontier market under genuine operational pressure.