In 1974, a small financial services company opened its doors in Phoenix House on Nairobi’s bustling streets. It had no grand ambitions to conquer East Africa. What it had was a clear, simple purpose to provide personalized financial services to the businesspeople of Nairobi, in a city and a country still finding its economic footing a decade after independence.
That company was Investments & Mortgages Limited. Today, we know it as I&M Group PLC, a publicly listed financial conglomerate operating across Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and Mauritius, with over 965,000 customers, KES 669 billion in assets, and a share price that has tripled in the last three years alone. The distance between those two points is a story of reinvention.
Also read: I&M Group Delivers a Strong FY 2025 With Profits Up 22% to KES 19.8B
The Early Years: Building a Foundation (1974 – 1999)
Post-independence Kenya was a country brimming with economic ambition. New businesses were being formed, trade was expanding, and the demand for sophisticated financial services beyond what traditional retail banks offered was real and growing. Investments & Mortgages Limited stepped into that gap, offering tailored investment and mortgage solutions to Nairobi’s emerging business community with a personalized, relationship-first approach that set it apart from larger institutions.
By 1980, the company had formalized its status, registering as a Financial Institution under the Banking Act and relocating to Investment House on Kenyatta Avenue. For the next decade and a half, it navigated Kenya’s economic liberalization process, a period marked by structural adjustments, interest rate deregulation, and significant stress across the financial sector.
The pivotal moment came on 1st April 1996, when I&M formally converted to a full commercial bank, licensed by the Central Bank of Kenya.This broadened it from a specialist finance house into a bank capable of serving a wider range of customers, taking deposits, and competing in corporate and retail lending. The company marked its 25th anniversary in 1999 with a rebrand and a new logo, a deliberate signal that it was no longer simply a finance company.
The 2000s: Ambition Takes Shape
If the 1990s were about survival and transformation, the 2000s were about statement-making. In 2002, I&M opened the iconic I&M Bank Tower; a 16-storey glass and steel skyscraper on Kenyatta Avenue in the heart of Nairobi’s central business district. Like city skylines that tell stories of institutional confidence, the I&M Bank Tower was their declaration of arrival.
The following year, I&M made its first significant acquisition; Biashara Bank of Kenya Limited, meaningfully expanding its branch network, customer base, and assets under management. In 2005, the Group added GA Insurance to its portfolio, laying the foundations for what would become a substantial bancassurance operation.
Then, in 2008, the company officially adopted the name I&M Bank Limited, shedding the Investments & Mortgages moniker that had served it for over three decades. It was a clean, modern identity for a business that had long outgrown its original description.
Going Regional: East Africa and Beyond (2008 – 2015)
By the late 2000s, I&M had established itself as one of Kenya’s respected commercial banks. But the leadership was thinking bigger. The East African Community was deepening its economic integration, cross-border trade was growing, and the opportunity to build a truly regional bank was becoming clearer.
The regional expansion began in Mauritius. In 2008, I&M acquired a 50% stake in First City Bank Limited, which subsequently rebranded as Bank One Mauritius.Tanzania followed in 2010, when I&M acquired a controlling stake in CF Union Bank, rebranding it as I&M Bank Tanzania.
Rwanda came next in 2012, with the acquisition of a controlling interest in Commercial Bank of Rwanda; at the time the country’s second-largest commercial bank, which was subsequently rebranded as I&M Bank Rwanda. Uganda completed the East African quad in 2020 through the acquisition of Orient Bank, one of Uganda’s established private sector commercial banks.
Each market brought different dynamics; different regulatory environments, different customer behaviours, different competitive landscapes. The thread running through all of them was the same: I&M’s belief that the region deserved a bank that understood it from the inside.
In 2013, I&M Holdings Limited was created as the holding company, and through a reverse acquisition of the then listed City Trust Limited (CTL) , became publicly traded on the Nairobi Securities Exchange. The Group had formalized its structure, opened itself to public capital markets, and set the stage for the next chapter.
Consolidation and Scale (2015 – 2022)
With a regional footprint in place, I&M turned its attention to deepening its position. In 2017, following regulatory approval, Giro Commercial Bank was fully absorbed into I&M Bank Kenya, further expanding the branch network and cementing I&M’s position in the Tier I league of Kenyan banks.
In 2020, the Group moved its headquarters from the iconic I&M Bank Tower on Kenyatta Avenue to 1 Park Avenue in Parklands. The Tower had been home for nearly two decades; the move to 1 Park Avenue was about looking forward, not back.
These years also saw I&M begin to invest meaningfully in its digital infrastructure, recognizing that the world was shifting from branches to smartphones, and that the bank needed to compete on both fronts simultaneously.
iMara: The Strategy That Changed the Gear (2016 – Present)
The iMara journey began in 2016, which acknowledged that the bank had a strong credit focus, and hence began with fixing the basics.
The name itself, Swahili for “strong” or “firm,” was chosen deliberately as it was a strategy of transformation. iMara 1.0 and 2.0 laid the groundwork, investing in brand relevance, digital capabilities, talent, and group synergies.
By the time iMara 3.0 launched in 2024, covering the period through to 2026, the framework had sharpened into three clear strategic pillars: developing leadership in Corporate and Institutional Banking, building relevance in Retail and SME segments, and becoming a leader in digital ecosystems.
The results of that strategy are now visible in the numbers. Between FY 2016 and FY 2025, Total Operating Income tripled from KES 20.8 billion to KES 60.3 billion. Profit After Tax grew from KES 7.8 billion to KES 18.8 billion. The customer base crossed 965,000 across five markets, with 86% of those customers now digitally active. The Group disbursed over KES 5.9 billion via digital ecosystem partnerships in FY 2025 alone, up 90% year-on-year.
The Wealth Management business, almost nascent just two years ago, now manages KES 99 billion in Assets Under Management, up 223% in two years. Digital revenue grew 231% to KES 4.0 billion in FY 2025. Brand awareness jumped from 20% in 2023 to 42% in 2025.
All this was the result of deliberate, sustained investment in making I&M a name that Kenyans and East Africans know and reach for.
Fifty Years and Counting
The I&M story is something quietly remarkable. It did not begin with a government mandate or a foreign parent’s capital. It began with a straightforward proposition, that Nairobi’s businesspeople deserved a financial partner that understood their needs and treated them with care. Five decades later, that same instinct runs through everything the Group does, even as the scale of what it does has grown beyond what any of its founders could have imagined.
From Phoenix House to 1 Park Avenue. From a single office serving Nairobi businesspeople to five markets and nearly a million customers. From a private finance company to a publicly listed Group with KES 669 billion in assets and a seat at the table in every major economy in East Africa.
The name might have changed, the look evolved, and the balance sheet grown. But the promise, to be on your side, has remained constant.
