Centenary Bank to push digital services and open more branches under new boss

Centenary Bank, Uganda’s largest bank by customer numbers, will expand its digital services while continuing to open branches, its new managing director has said, setting out a strategy of growth-with-continuity weeks after taking charge of the indigenous lender.

Godfrey Byekwaso, who took over on 1 July, said the bank would invest more in online and mobile platforms to let customers bank at any hour, while keeping physical branches for those who prefer to deal with staff in person.

“We know that our customers want convenience. They want a bank where they are, not a bank where they go,” he told a stakeholders’ meeting in Kampala.

The dual approach reflects a wider challenge for African lenders, which are trying to cut costs and reach unbanked populations through technology without alienating older or rural customers who still rely on branches and cash.

Byekwaso said physical banking remained central to the bank’s plans. “We have not left those who still want to come and see us, because we know that behind the technology there are people,” he said. The lender recently opened a branch in Kalongo and is preparing another in Katakwi, and is expanding its agency banking network, which allows shops and other outlets to offer basic services on the bank’s behalf.

Much of the meeting was aimed at reassuring customers, regulators and business partners that little would change following the leadership handover. Byekwaso succeeded Fabian Kasi, who stepped down after 16 years leading the bank.

“We wanted to demonstrate that this is a transition of continuity. It is not a transition because something has gone wrong,” Byekwaso said. Kasi described the change as a planned succession that would not affect strategy.

Kasi said the bank had grown from 37 to 82 branches during his tenure, with its loan book expanding from 350bn Ugandan shillings to 4.6tn, and deposits rising from 700bn shillings to more than 6tn. The bank serves more than three million customers and has built a network of nearly 10,000 banking agents.

By the bank’s own December 2025 figures, its assets exceeded 8.6tn shillings ($2.3bn), with profit after tax of 424.2bn shillings. Centenary began as a microfinance initiative aimed at rural Ugandans and has since become one of the country’s dominant lenders.

Byekwaso joined Centenary in 2012 as general manager for finance, and later ran the group’s Malawi subsidiary, where he oversaw a turnaround to profitability, before returning to Uganda.