Boubyan Bank records net profit of KD 25m for the first quarter
KUWAIT: Boubyan Bank has announced KD 31.7 million in operating profits for the first quarter of this year as the bank recorded KD 25 million in net profits at a growth rate of 21 percent compared with last year, while the earnings per share amounts to 5.2 fils. Boubyan Bank’s Vice-Chairman & Group Chief Executive Officer, Adel Al-Majed, stated: “Our positive financial results during Q1, 2024 is a testament to Boubyan’s outstanding position in the local financial and banking sector. Customers of the bank can rest assure that the management will continue its efforts towards leadership and sustained growth across all the bank’s areas.”
Al-Majed highlighted the most significant numbers recorded by the bank during Q1, as the bank’s assets grew to KD 8.7 billion at a growth rate of 8 percent compared with last year, while the bank’s financing portfolio grew by 8 percent to reach KD 6.5 billion thus increasing the bank’s market share of local financing to 11.6 percent and operating income grew by 17 percent to KD 61.6 million.
He added: “The results achieved during this quarter have been closely associated with an effective strategy that enhanced the financial and operating performance of the Group as a whole. With steady steps, the bank will be launching a new 5-year strategy to continue boosting growth, positive performance, and upgrade of our digital infrastructure, in addition to increasing our market shares, while moving forward towards accelerating overall improvements.”
Excellence in customer service
Al-Majed highlighted: “Boubyan Bank’s management is always working to improve the quality of services and products to improve and enrich a banking experience that meets the needs of customers and becomes part of their daily life, which led the bank to be in the lead for customer service in Kuwait as it has been named the “Best Islamic Bank in Customer Service” for the 14th year in a row since 2010, in addition to being ranked among the top three in Customer Service across all economic sectors in Kuwait for the year 2023 by Service Hero, the consumer-driven customer satisfaction index.
“Boubyan managed to become a leading franchise by following a tailored path that reinforces customer satisfaction levels, leading to receiving a 96 percent customer-satisfaction score among all Islamic and conventional local banks. The bank’s market share and its ongoing growth reflect the high levels in customer service and digital excellence, which are the fruit of the bank’s clear strategy, professional executive team, and continued investment in our human resources with special focus on our national cadres”, he added.
He elaborated: “The bank’s sustained growth was the result of a well-studied approach towards investing in various business sectors, thus leading to significant growth in our consumer banking and corporate banking businesses, thanks to our focus on creativity and innovation despite the fierce competition in the banking sector.”
Nomo - accelerating growth
During the past period, Nomo Bank, the digital arm of the Bank of London and the Middle East “BLME”, a subsidiary of Boubyan Bank Group, launched unique products and services that put it on par with top financial institutions. This aligns with its strategy that focuses on enhancing and improving its core digital business in order to ensure offering the best banking experience to individual customers through the best digital solutions so as to provide easier, more convenient, and secure digital payment solutions.
Moreover, Nomo Bank has recently hosted Barratt London, a UK property developer, with the attendance of some of the bank’s customers, along with Great Portland, and a group of individuals and investors who were interested in exploring exclusive Sharia-compliant real estate and investment opportunities with competitive advantages in order to benefit from the best possible investment value, coupled with the best property finance solutions that cope with the accelerating growth in the UK’s property investment.
Prominent digital achievements Boubyan Bank’s digital transformation strategy gained a significant momentum, being a real example for succeeding in being highly competitive regionally in digital services, and in changing the lives of our customers through our services and products. Our digital services’ journey is very exceptional. It has seen us excel and climb to the top of the pyramid amid tough competition in the market for digital banking services which is growing rapidly.
During Q1, Boubyan offered a group of innovative services, products, and digital solutions, which added value to customers and maintained the bank’s leadership in innovation to ensure enriching their banking experience, and making things easier, especially amid the competition across various business sectors. This reflects the bank’s ongoing approach to develop the digital infrastructure and to offer the best services in the field of digital payments.
Boubyan continued supporting its human resources and recruiting national cadres, and was able to reach the highest percentage of national manpower across the private sector, which now exceeds 81%, and continued its enablement approach for women, who now account for 30% of the bank’s employees, with many of them occupying leadership positions.
The bank’s human resources proved themselves to be one of the key pillars of the bank’s ongoing success, as they embrace and adopt Boubyan’s future vision, which greatly contributes to the introduction of innovative and creative ideas and deliverables, while reiterating the bank’s commitment to providing all that is necessary to support our human resources’ leadership role in a real and sustained manner to have a positive effect on the future job market and achieve the desired results in terms of increasing our productivity and the profitability rates of the bank.
CSR and Ramadan
During the same period, Boubyan successfully concluded a complete program of initiatives and social contributions during the Holy Month of Ramadan, which aimed at daily engagement with various segments of the society to reinforce our leadership role in CSR and sustainable development, being among the key drivers of Boubyan’s strategy.
Through this program, the bank managed to make a unique social mark that aimed at reinforcing the meanings of giving, volunteering, and committing to an unprecedented social engagement throughout the Holy Month, thanks to the efforts of our Boubyan Team of Volunteers that comprised of a group of our employees from various departments, with the participation of our customers out of their keenness on sharing the reward of good deeds.