The winning of this award by the four subsidiary banking units of ABG was announced in a final result statement by the magazine’s Award Committee, which included in its membership, a number of economists and editors of Global Finance, international financial advisors and a number of bank managers and experts in the field of banking.
Al Baraka units received this award for their prominent role in the Islamic banking sector, their ability to achieve consistent growth in the future and meeting professional standards in terms of the quality of products and services offered to clients, as well as for their originality and innovation in services and customer service, continued development and innovation in banking operations and other important criteria such as strategic relationships, geographic reach, profitability and robustness of financial position.
The award will be given in a ceremony which will be held in Tokyo at the same time as the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank that will be held on 13th October 2012.
“We are very happy with the achievement of four of our banking units in winning this international award, which reflects the leading status that these units enjoy in their countries. These awards come to affirm the excellent performance of these units and the good reputation they have in the Islamic banking sector at the local, regional and international levels,” Adnan Ahmed Yousif, President and Chief Executive of Al Baraka Banking Group said.
“The awards reflect the success of Al Baraka Banking Group’s vision and strategy which are based on enhancing the positions of subsidiary units, strengthening their capital resources and creating strong business relationships between the units, as well as coordinating the business policies and the management of risks and operations and other factors, which help us to achieve excellent results despite the prevailed conditions in most markets where ABG unite operate. ABG now ranks fifth in terms of total assets among Gulf Islamic banks, and we achieved the highest growth rate in profit of 10% compared to other similar banks in the region, which they achieved 3%, while the growth rate of our deposits was 26.3% and this exceed the same growth rates of many larger banks in the region,” he added.
ABG is also considered as the biggest in terms of branch network with more than 400 branches in 15 countries providing their services to around one billion people of these countries, and total staff in these braches exceeding 9,000 employees.
“The subsidiary banking units of our Group, through their long history in countries where they operate, have come to be amongst the leading financial institutions in servicing their communities and are most established in terms of their expertise and knowledge of the local markets, which has enabled them to achieve rapid expansion in terms of number of branches and to offer more innovative and high quality products and services to their customer base.”