Investment strategies and financial performance of listed commercial banks in Kenya

Abstract

Commercial banks are key drivers of economic growth and development through provision of financial services. In as much as commercial banks have endeavored to optimize returns from investments, data shows that some banks in Kenya are still making very low profit margins from investments while some investment record losses. The general objective of was to establish the nexus between investment strategies and financial performance of listed commercial banks in Kenya. The study had the following specific objectives: to find out the effect of investment properties, government securities, corporate investments and to find out the effect the loans and advances on financial performance of listed commercial banks in Kenya. The study adopted descriptive research design. The study population comprised of all ten listed banks in Kenya. Secondary data was collected from published financial statements and annual reports of the banks for the period 2013-2023. The data was firm-level data and therefore panel data regression was done. The output from data analysis were presented on tables and graphs. The R2 was 0.639, revealing that 63.9 % of variations in financial performance, proxied by ROA was due to changes in investment strategies, namely investment property, government security, corporate investments and loans and advances. Results showed that investment property had negative insignificant effect on financial performance (β=-0.701, p<0.05), government securities had positive insignificant effect on financial performance (β=0.003, p=0.819>0.05), corporate investments had negative significant effect (β=-0.084, p<0.05), and loans and advances had positive insignificant effect on financial performance of listed commercial banks in Kenya (β=0.013, p=0.216>0.05). The study recommends listed banks to invest more in the core business of advancing loans and advances and also invest in government securities as this had positive effect on financial returns. The Central Bank of Kenya also should provide constant investment strategies in light with current researches in the Kenyan banking sector.