Headquartered in Nairobi, the bank owns one subsidiary company: NatBank Trustee and Investment Services Limited.

[5] The bank was established in 1968 as a 100 percent government-owned financial institution.

The government further divested from NBK over the years, until its present shareholding of 22.5 percent, as of April 2019.

[6] Following 12 years of poor financial performance, the bank became profitable again in 2010, paying out an annual dividend ever since.

[5] The bank owns the following subsidiary companies in which it has 100% shareholding As of October 2019[update], the stock of National Bank of Kenya is owned by the Kenya Commercial Bank Group, a large financial conglomerate, with subsidiaries in seven Eastern African countries and total assets of over $7.013 billion, as of October 2019.