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1 week ago | 
thebanker.com | John Everington
As Saudi Arabia faces up to the possibility of increased fiscal tightening in the midst of lower oil prices, the kingdom’s lenders still have plenty of cause for optimism.
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1 week ago | 
thebanker.com | John Everington
The unfolding US-China trade war’s adverse impact on global economic growth is particularly bad news for Saudi Arabia, with demand for oil set to further weaken the kingdom’s finances.
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1 month ago | 
thebanker.com | John Everington
Egypt’s first digital-only bank will launch in the second half of the year, hoping to secure a foothold among the 2mn young people that become newly eligible for a bank account every year in Africa’s third most populous country.
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1 month ago | 
thebanker.com | John Everington
A year after its dramatic “deus ex machina” rescue by the United Arab Emirates and IMF, Egypt’s economy is enjoying a period of stability not seen since the pre-Covid era.
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1 month ago | 
thebanker.com | Aliya Shibli |John Everington
Emirates NBD, the Middle East’s third-largest lender by tier one capital, has expanded into the UAE’s retail cryptocurrency market via its digital subsidiary Liv, in a move experts believe could catalyse further interest from regional banks to deepen their involvement in the wider digital asset space. Liv on March 6 announced a partnership with virtual asset service provider Aquanow to enable customers to buy, sell and trade cryptocurrencies through the digital bank’s mobile banking app, Liv X.
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2 months ago | 
thebanker.com | John Everington
By a number of metrics, Bahrain is both the most competitive and challenging banking environment in the Gulf Cooperation Council. Having long ceded its status as the region’s financial centre to Dubai, the country remains home to 29 retail banks competing against each other to serve a domestic population of just 1.5mn.
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2 months ago | 
thebanker.com | John Everington
HSBC is in discussions to offload its retail banking operations in Bahrain, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter, as part of its recently announced group-wide restructuring, which includes a wide-ranging review of the bank’s retail operations outside the UK and Hong Kong. The bank, which last year celebrated its 80th anniversary in Bahrain, is in talks to sell the retail business to a joint consortium of two banks, one of the sources told The Banker.
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2 months ago | 
thebanker.com | John Everington
Bahrain was the best-performing economy in the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council in 2024 behind the United Arab Emirates, a feat that is forecast to be repeated again in 2025. Such a performance on a superficial level speaks to the country’s efforts to diversify its economy beyond its oil industry, which has been in structural decline for several years; financial services have long eclipsed extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas as a contributor to GDP.
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Jan 17, 2025 | 
thebanker.com | John Everington
The global economy risks a protracted period of low growth that will be insufficient to foster sustained economic development and repair the damage from the economic shocks of the past five years, the World Bank has warned, with significant downside risks for the year ahead.
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Dec 18, 2024 | 
thebanker.com | John Everington
January 13 marks the third anniversary of Africa’s ambitious Pan-African Payment and Settlement System, an initiative of Afreximbank, the African Union and the AfCFTA designed to enable the more efficient flow of money securely across African borders, minimising risk for counterparties, and contributing to deeper financial integration across the continent.
