Nairobi, Feb. 10 -- Commercial banks are lobbying the Central Bank of Kenya to use profit after tax as a measure to calculate licence fees and drop its proposal to use revenues, a change that will see the regulator forgo collecting billions.

Kenya Bankers Association (KBA), the industry's lobby group, argues that basing permit fees on gross annual revenue (GAR) as proposed by CBK unfairly impacts banks that report high revenues but have high operational costs.

CBK is in the process of reviewing licencefees paid by commercial banks that have been stagnant for 35 years despite the exponential growth of banks. CBK argues it needs to collect more to play its oversight role better and avoid the risk of banks getting ahead of the regulator. ...