•  Our broad geographical footprint gives us a strong competitive edge boosting our future growth and regional leadership

• Fardan: Our profits prove our focus on strategic goals, sustained business growth and leading position

Isam Al-Sager, NBK Group Vice Chairman and CEO

KUWAIT: National Bank of Kuwait-Bahrain (NBK Bahrain) reported net profits of BHD 122.14 million (KD 99.39 million) for the year 2022, compared to BHD 117.68 million (KD 94.57 million) for the year 2021. As of end of 2022, NBK-Bahrain's total assets stood at BHD 7.24 billion (KD 5.89 billion) compared with BHD 7.43 billion (KD 5.97 billion) in 2021. Total shareholders' equity increased by 12% y-o-y to BHD 1.087 billion (KD 884 million), whereas customers deposits increased by 23% y-o-y to BHD 3.39 billion (KD 2.76 billion) by end of December 2022.

Commenting on NBK Bahrain's year-end financial results, Isam Al-Sager, NBK Group Vice Chairman and CEO said, "National Bank of Kuwait - Bahrain realized good profits for 2022, despite the challenging operating environment including escalating global geopolitical tensions and soaring inflation rates worldwide, and their impact on markets' performance." "Our international operations are key contributors to the Group's profits, which proves our resilient business model, and at the same time, the success of our regional expansion strategy in hedging against the risks and fluctuations, and its contribution to diversifying income sources," he added.

Al-Sager noted that the Bahraini market is one of the key growth markets for NBK Group, given the promising growth opportunities and positive prospects of this market. Al-Sager stressed that NBK will continue reinforcing its competiveness in the markets where it operates; as the Group's broad geographical footprint gives us a strong competitive edge boosting our regional leadership and future business growth. On his part, Ali Fardan, General Manager of NBK-Bahrain, said:"NBK-Bahrain's results for 2022 prove our focus on strategic goals, sustained business growth and leading position in the Bahraini market, despite the challenges faced during this year."

Ali Fardan, General Manager of NBK-Bahrain

Fardan pointed out that the bank is moving steadily in strengthening its position in Bahrain by providing high-quality banking and financial services to its retail and corporate customers, noting that the bank has great potentials to achieve further growth in the Bahraini market in the future. "Over the course of this year, NBK-Bahrain has been successful in providing various high-quality banking products and services that effectively helped meet customers' needs and enrich their banking experience," he highlighted.

Fardan praised the Central Bank of Bahrain's efforts, in particular, and all government agencies, in general, for their continued support extended to NBK-Bahrain and the Bahraini banking sectors. He also highlighted that the great support extended by NBK Group has contributed to strengthening the Bank's performance, through capitalizing on NBK's high credit ratings, broad relationship network, and leading reputation as one of the top banks in the Middle East, and one of the safest banks in the world.

NBK is the largest financial institution in Kuwait with effective market dominance in the commercial banking market and has been consistently awarded one of the highest credit ratings among all regional banks from Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch Ratings. NBK also stands out in terms of its local and international network, which includes branches, subsidiaries and representative offices in many regional and global financial hubs including China, Geneva, London, Paris, New York, and Singapore alongside its regional presence in Lebanon, Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.