NMB Bank: Five Years Where Purpose Paid — And Kept Paying

Monday, 25th August 2025

By inAfrika Reporter

Ruth Zaipuna inherited NMB Bank in August 2020 amid a profit squeeze, COVID-era credit anxiety, and a digital agenda that was more aspiration than system. Five years later the bank is not merely larger; it is institutionally stronger and priced as such. Deposits have risen from TZS 5.2 trillion in 2020 to TZS 10.3 trillion by June 2025. Loans have expanded from TZS 4.1 trillion to TZS 9.5 trillion, with balance-sheet assets moving from TZS 7.1 trillion to TZS 14.7 trillion over the same period. Earnings have scaled even faster: profit after tax has climbed from TZS 142 billion in 2019 to TZS 640 billion in 2024, while the first half of 2025 delivered TZS 357 billion—six times the equivalent period in 2019. Returns on equity have held north of twenty percent, which is unusual in frontier banking and rarely sustained without subsidy or undue risk. Markets have noticed. The share price has more than tripled from TZS 2,340 in 2020 to TZS 7,870 by 15 August 2025, pushing market capitalization beyond a billion dollars, while dividends have stepped up from TZS 96 per share in 2020 to TZS 429 in 2024 alongside record aggregate payouts. None of this is accidental; it is the compounding effect of a playbook that treats inclusion as unit economics, technology as operating leverage, and governance as the cheapest form of capital.

Franchise Re-rated

NMB’s re-rating is justified by the quality of its growth rather than the quantity alone. Deposit momentum has come from low-cost, high-frequency pools created by digital rails and a dense agency network, which keeps funding beta contained as interest cycles roll through. With a loan-to-deposit ratio hovering near ninety-two percent, the bank is productively deployed but not stretched. Income breadth has improved as non-interest lines in payments, collections, trade and digital usage rise in tandem with net interest income, which makes the earnings profile less hostage to repricing.

Capital markets have priced the durability of those returns rather than a one-off spike. A bank that delivers return on equity consistently above its cost of equity while retaining enough to fund growth should trade above book value; investors are effectively buying the spread and the runway. NMB’s dividend discipline supports this view: a payout that still leaves reinvestment headroom, earnings per share at TZS 1,287 in 2024, and a franchise that now attracts global screens on size alone. The equity story is not simply multiple expansion. It is operating leverage grounded in systems that turn customer activity into stable revenue, and stable revenue into compounding cash.

People, Technology, Governance

The operating code explains the resilience. Human capital has been treated as core infrastructure. More than TZS 30 billion has been committed to capability building. Headcount has increased from roughly three thousand employees in 2021 to more than four thousand in 2025, yet attrition remains about three percent. Internal appointments have risen to about ninety percent from forty-seven percent in 2019, which preserves culture as the organization scales. It is no coincidence that staff costs now account for about fifty-seven percent of total costs; the bank has chosen service quality and throughput over superficial operating-expense optics. Recognition has followed, including Tanzania’s first Top Employers Institute certification in 2025 and a workforce that is now majority women, building on the EDGE gender-equality standard set in 2021.

Technology has shifted from promise to plumbing. Ninety-six percent of transactions clear through alternative channels. The NMB Mkononi app has become a full-stack front end for savings, credit, investments, bill pay, international transfers, taxes and merchant acceptance. The agency network has expanded from 8,410 outlets in 2020 to about 63,000 by June 2025, which is the real backbone of last-mile banking. That distribution has lifted the customer base from around five million in 2021 to roughly 9.2 million by mid-2025 and enabled products that matter in the informal economy. Instant microloans through MshikoFasta have surpassed TZS 300 billion in disbursements, while Kikundi accounts have brought more than two hundred forty-three thousand savings groups into formal rails. This is inclusion that pays for itself because it increases transactional density, reduces cash handling, and stabilizes deposit behavior.

Governance has provided the spine. Stronger risk management and elevated disclosure have earned top-tier Moody’s ratings—upgraded earlier from B2 to B1—and repeated wins as the safest bank in the country as well as Euromoney and The Banker awards for overall franchise quality. The sustainability posture is financial, not theatrical. NMB pioneered Sub-Saharan Africa’s first gender bond in 2022 and followed with a sustainability bond in 2023, mobilizing TZS 474 billion into measurable social and environmental programs. Those transactions secured IFC’s platinum recognition and cross-listings in Luxembourg and London, which is another way of saying that the bank has learned to borrow trust from the toughest markets by showing its work. Over the last five years it has paid more than TZS 1.5 trillion in taxes and swept national compliance awards, while corporate social investments—scholarships, hospital refurbishments, pediatric cardiac interventions, special-needs infrastructure and a tree-planting drive exceeding 1.4 million—have been targeted at long-horizon public goods. The effect is reputational capital that compresses the bank’s true cost of funding without a single line item on the income statement.

Durability and Valuation

The question for investors is not whether NMB has earned its re-rating, but whether the return engine can endure as the balance sheet becomes larger and more complex. Three variables matter. Asset quality must remain disciplined through the capex cycle; underwriting, early-warning systems and collateral hygiene will be tested as corporate books deepen and foreign-exchange frictions flare. Funding mix will need continued attention as competitors bid for transactional deposits and try to imitate the agency model; the economic health of the agent network, the uptime of the digital rails and the bank’s data-led engagement will decide how sticky those balances remain. Operational resilience will be the quiet determinant of trust in a bank where almost every transaction is digital; fraud analytics, identity controls, and disaster recovery are as strategic as branch locations once were.

On valuation, the logic is straightforward. A franchise that can keep return on equity meaningfully above its cost of equity while sustaining mid-teens balance-sheet growth deserves to trade above book, because excess returns are expected to persist. The sensitivity is easy to grasp without algebra. If growth slows materially, if funding costs rise faster than asset yields, or if credit costs normalize above long-run assumptions, the premium compresses. NMB’s answer so far has been to make the returns less cyclical: broaden fee income, harden collection systems, and keep deposit acquisition cheap by owning the rails. That is why the bank’s multiple has expanded alongside profits rather than instead of them.

The board’s decision on 11 August 2025 to appoint Zaipuna as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer formalizes continuity. It says the method that created value—people first, technology as leverage, governance as signal—will stay in place. In a market where banks often ask investors to choose between growth and prudence, NMB has offered both. If asset quality remains steady, if funding beta stays contained, and if operational resilience keeps pace with scale, then profit with purpose will remain more than a slogan. It will continue to be a spread.