Two Banks, One Balance Sheet Economy: How CRDB and NMB Are Reshaping Tanzania’s Financial System
As Tanzania’s two largest banks expand faster than the economy itself, their balance sheets are beginning to shape how credit, risk, and growth are distributed. An analysis of 2025 results from CRDB Bank and NMB Bank shows a shift from ordinary profit growth to structural dominance, with implications for competition, financial stability, and the direction of national development.
Tanzania’s two largest banks closed 2025 with results that, on the surface, look like simple growth stories. A closer reading of CRDB Bank and NMB Bank’s financial statements shows something more consequential. Their balance sheets are expanding faster than the economy, their profit engines are diversifying, and their dominance is beginning to reshape the structure of the banking sector itself.
CRDB’s total assets rose to TZS 22.2 trillion in 2025 from TZS 16.7 trillion in 2024, a 33 percent increase. NMB followed with asset growth of about 25 percent to TZS 17.2 trillion. This matters in macro terms. Tanzania’s nominal GDP did not expand anywhere near those rates, which means these banks are deepening financial intermediation faster than the real economy is growing. Credit is becoming more concentrated in a small number of very large balance sheets.
Both banks converted deposit growth into lending. CRDB’s loans and advances increased from TZS 10.4 trillion to TZS 13.7 trillion, while NMB’s rose to TZS 10.4 trillion, up about 23 percent year on year. Deposits grew in parallel. CRDB’s customer deposits expanded by 35 percent to TZS 14.8 trillion, while NMB’s grew by about 30 percent to TZS 12.4 trillion. This indicates that balance sheet expansion is largely deposit-funded rather than driven by short-term wholesale borrowing. Structurally, this lowers liquidity risk and points to strong retail and SME franchise strength.
Profit growth, however, is not just a volume story. CRDB’s profit before tax rose to TZS 1.0 trillion from TZS 778.8 billion, while profit after tax increased 31 percent to TZS 724.6 billion. NMB recorded profit before tax of TZS 1.1 trillion and profit after tax of about TZS 750 billion, both growing in the mid-teens. The key analytical point is that earnings growth is coming from two channels simultaneously. Net interest income is rising because loan books are expanding faster than funding costs. At the same time, non-interest income is becoming structurally more important. CRDB generated more than TZS 549 billion from fees and commissions, while NMB posted over TZS 483 billion in the same category. This signals a shift toward transaction-based banking and digital service monetization rather than pure spread banking.
Efficiency trends separate the two institutions. NMB’s cost-to-income ratio stands at about 37 percent, compared to CRDB’s roughly 42 percent. This gap is strategic, not cosmetic. It suggests NMB’s operating model extracts more income per shilling of cost, likely reflecting stronger automation and a tighter branch-to-digital mix. CRDB, by contrast, is trading some efficiency for scale and reach, with a larger branch network and faster asset expansion. The result is two different dominance models. One is built on cost leadership. The other on balance sheet power.
Asset quality remains stable for now. Non-performing loans sit at around 3 percent for CRDB and 2.5 percent for NMB. Both banks increased provisions, which implies management is not suppressing credit risk to inflate profits. But analytically, this is where risk enters the story. Credit is growing much faster than deposits and faster than GDP. That creates a lagged vulnerability. If macro conditions tighten or certain sectors weaken, today’s clean loan books could deteriorate quickly simply because of scale.
There is also a growing sovereign link. Both banks expanded their holdings of government securities. This improves liquidity and stabilizes income, but it also ties their balance sheets more closely to fiscal conditions. As these institutions grow systemically important, their exposure to government paper becomes a channel through which public finance stress could transmit into the banking system.
The structural implication is concentration. Together, CRDB and NMB now control assets approaching TZS 40 trillion. Their lending decisions increasingly shape which sectors receive credit and which do not. This raises competitive pressure on mid-sized and small banks, which must either specialize or accept shrinking market relevance. Over time, this may reduce diversity in credit allocation unless regulatory and policy frameworks deliberately support second-tier institutions.
For investors, the signal is that both banks are executing coherent strategies rather than riding cyclical luck. Deposit-funded growth, diversified income streams, and improving efficiency ratios point to durable earnings power. For policymakers, the message is more complex. These institutions are no longer just commercial actors. They are becoming macro-relevant financial nodes. Stability in their balance sheets now matters for economic stability more broadly.
The 2025 results therefore mark a structural transition. CRDB Bank is evolving into a balance-sheet heavyweight whose growth mirrors state-level financial expansion. NMB Bank is consolidating its position as the efficiency leader with comparable profitability and stronger cost control. The Tanzanian banking sector is no longer defined by many medium-sized competitors. It is increasingly defined by two giants whose strategies will shape the next phase of credit, inclusion, and financial risk.
This is not just a story of higher profits. It is a story of structural power in finance, and of how banking scale is beginning to intersect directly with Tanzania’s economic trajectory.