Nairobi, May 24 -- National Bank of Kenya (NBK) net profit for the three months to March grew nearly quadrupled to Sh1 billion riding on cheaper cost of funds and lower provisioning for defaults.

The bank, which was acquired from KCB Group by Nigerian lender Access Bank last year, had reported a net profit of Sh275.6 million in a similar period last year.

NBK cut its loan loss provisions, booked as an expense, to Sh50 million from Sh617 million after slashing its bad debts by nearly half.

Its non-performing loans dropped to Sh17.5 billion from Sh32.2 billion which management has previously attributed to enhanced recoveries and cherry-picking quality assets at the time of buying the lender from KCB.

NBK's cost of funds declined 38.7 pe...