This was announced by Ithmaar Bank Chairman His Royal Highness Prince Amr Mohammed Al Faisal in a statement on Saturday. “On behalf of the Ithmaar Bank Board of Directors, I am pleased to report that the Bank continues to post profits, despite challenging market conditions,” said HRH Prince Amr. “The Bank’s year-to-date results indicate that our core retail and corporate banking activities remain a stable source of recurring income,” he said.
“Ithmaar’s half-year consolidated financial results show a net profit of $8.2million, of which $4.3million is attributable to shareholders of the Bank,” said HRH Prince Amr. “This compares to a profit of $8.3million out of which $4.6million was attributable to the shareholders for the same period last year. The profit for the second quarter of 2011 alone is $0.8 million, as against $0.3million for the same period last year. This reflects on the Bank’s growing success after adapting to the current economic situation arising from a slower economy in general, and the recent regional geopolitical developments,” said HRH Prince Amr.
“The Bank aggressively pursued and made recoveries against provisioned assets, and as a result, was able to write-back a sizeable amount of $43.2million. At the same time, adequate provision of $25.7million was made for the new assets. This reflects on the Bank’s continued policy of adopting prudent impairment provisions on financings and investments,” he said.
“The Group has continued to successfully control costs,” said HRH Prince Amr. “The increase in operating expenses is mainly due to the expansion of its flagship subsidiary Faysal Bank Limited (FBL) following the addition of 80 branches acquired from Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) in Pakistan,” he added.
Ithmaar Bank Chief Executive Officer and Member of the Board, Mohammed Bucheerei said that, the asset base increased significantly by $326 million, from $6.7billion to $7.1billion since December last year. Shareholders’ equity remained strong at $661million. Ithmaar’s half-year results, made all the more significant by the challenging market conditions in which we operate, reflect the success of Bank’s efforts to develop its core retail and corporate banking business.”
“Total income remained stable at $104million, compared to $107.2million for the same period last year. In addition to developing our corporate banking activities by establishing new institutional relationships, we have also developed our retail banking activities with unrestricted investment accounts improving significantly, by 12.7 percent, to $1.3 billion,” said Bucheerei.
“The Bank’s retail and corporate banking activities continued to play a key role in the business growth. The total deposit base has increased by $320.7million in the six-month period since December 2010. With increased liquidity, the Bank was able to provide financing to individuals and businesses in the market on a selective basis, adopting a cautious approach and carrying out adequate due diligence,” he said.
“The Bank’s prize-linked savings scheme, Thimaar Account, continues to perform well. The Bank also launched a home finance product during the second quarter this year and prior to that, personal finance and limited-scale car finance promotions were successfully launched,” said Bucheerei.