Kenya's KCB group says Q1 pretax profit up 6 pct

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's KCB Group,, the country's biggest bank by asset, said on Thursday first-quarter 2016 pretax profit rose 6 percent to 6.6 billion shillings ($66 million), helped by higher interest income. The bank's net loans and advances to customers rose to 345.94 billion shillings, from 297.03 billion shillings a year earlier. That led to a 24 percent rise in net interest income to 11.45 billion shillings. ($1 = 100.6000 Kenyan shillings) (Reporting by George Obulutsa; Editing by Susan Fenton)