KUWAIT: Boubyan Bank has announced KD 91.1 million in operating profits until the end of last September, as the bank recorded KD 73.5 million in net profits at a growth rate of 20 percent compared with last year, while the earnings per share amount to 16.1 fils.
Key financial indicators until the end of Q3 of this year show that the bank’s assets grew to KD 9.1 billion at a growth rate of 11 percent compared with last year, while the bank’s financing portfolio grew by 12 percent to reach KD 6.8 billion, and operating income grew by 12 percent to reach KD 183 million, whereas the bank’s market share of local financing increased to 12 percent.
Adel Al-Majed, Boubyan Bank’s Vice-Chairman & Group Chief Executive Officer, stated: "As we approach the end of this year with the lapse of 9 months already, the bank’s financial results are very favorable and promising that we will be ending this year very well, which brings good news to our shareholders and customers who placed their confidence in Boubyan over the past years.”
"Over the past years, Boubyan Bank Group expanded beyond the concept of banking services, as it now comprises of strong entities that offer retail and corporate services locally and internationally, side by side with Sharia-compliant insurance and wealth management services, as well investment solutions providing many options to customers.”, he added.
Al-Majed emphasized that the accelerated growth over the past decade confirmed the success of the bank’s strategy focusing on the future, especially as the bank now ranks third locally in terms of financial indicators, in addition to being the first and favorite choice of various segments of customers owing to the leap in digital banking services.
A game-changing plan
He added: "Results of this period are attributed to our strategy of focusing on new markets with promising growth opportunities and positive financing investments with profitability for the bank’s investing customers and its shareholders. This is added to focusing on digital innovation and growth of the bank’s operational performance and efficient liquidity, along with the great improvement of our state-of-the-art banking solutions and excelling in innovative offerings that meet the needs of various customer segments.”
Al-Majed went on to add: "To continue our success journey, we developed a visionary strategy for the next 5 years titled ‘Game-Changer’, which activates our group-wide wealth management plan to expand our investment solutions and opportunities, and to explore new markets in order to accelerate the attraction of more wealth to manage in order to offer the best to our customers with an investment appetite.”
"Boubyan’s wealth management is not merely about offering investment advice; rather, it is a holistic process and an approach that integrates strategic and investment partnerships that ensure full understanding of the investor’s financial position as well as the most significant goals, proper planning and management of risks in order to safeguard and grow wealth”, he pointed out.
International awards
In a new achievement that reflects Boubyan’s leadership, the bank has recently received six prestigious global, regional, and domestic banking awards by Global Finance, the internationally renowned publication, as part of its annual awards that recognize the most outstanding and innovative financial and banking institutions in offering consumer and digital banking services for the year 2024.
These awards are a strong motivation for the bank to move forward with more excellent and innovative banking services as part of the bank’s ongoing journey towards digital transformation. Moreover, the "Straight Through Processing Award” given by Citi Bank highlights the outstanding and exceptional performance of Boubyan Bank in processing USD payments, as the bank scored 99.8 percent for commercial payments and 100 percent for treasury payments.
Mastercard International recognized Boubyan with the award for the "Fastest Growing in Kuwait” for the outstanding growth of its Premium customers’ base, thus celebrating the bank’s efforts that focus on innovating unique banking services and solutions to give customers an exceptional banking experience - coupled with the highest service levels - that befits their modern lifestyle and exceeds their expectations. Boubyan’s partnership with Mastercard complements the bank’s accomplishments in the field of digital payments over the past years, which can be seen through its special tech-solutions boosted by Mastercard’s advanced technology. Such accomplishments included a number of innovations launched for the first time in the local market.
Strategic partnerships
Boubyan Bank has recently concluded a series of strategic partnerships that reflect its commitment to offering exceptional experiences that add value to the lifestyle of its customers and enhance their satisfaction levels. The bank already announced its collaboration with Acico Group through a strategic partnership that includes providing innovative financial promotions and flexible credit facilities up to KD 70,000 over tenures extending up to 15 years to its customers who are interested in high-quality construction and engineering services. The agreement secures a 10 percent discount offered by Acico to Boubyan Bank’s customers on Super Deluxe construction packages. In return, Acico’s customers get special financing rates by Boubyan Bank on the same package.
Moreover, Boubyan’s strategic partnership with Enabill, the leader in the business of restaurants’ digitalization, reflects the bank’s focus on incentivizing business environments to embrace digital innovation and to boost the capabilities of startups’ entrepreneurs to offer the best level of daily services in a smooth manner. The agreement targets the achievement of two key goals, namely improving the performance of fintech and enhancing the overall digital transformation ecosystem, coupled with supporting entrepreneurs and tech startups, while opening new growth opportunities and horizons to develop their entrepreneurship and enhance their operational efficiency.
Solutions reflecting added value to customer experience
To reinforce the bank’s strategic approach towards improving its business environment and to empower local entrepreneurs, Boubyan gave the business banking customers an unlimited cashback benefit up to 1.5 percent on using their business banking Visa card, in addition to offering them a new package of exclusive solutions, as well as newly introduced and updated benefits to enhance their banking experience and to make it more exceptional.
Furthermore, the bank concluded its 2024 summer credit cards’ campaign, which achieved a great success and saw great participation with the announcement of 20 winners of Boubyan’s credit and digital cardholders, who made purchase transactions inside and outside Kuwait or through online shopping or digital wallets’ payments.
Leadership in CSR
Boubyan reaffirms its commitment to offering a model to follow in CSR, which reinforces its mission that emanates from its identity as a leading banking institution in CSR. The calendar of Boubyan’s CSR events and contributions during Q3, 2024 saw a significant activity across all levels. The bank concluded the 5th edition of Boubyan FC 24’s E-CUP; the largest tournament in Kuwait that is approved by Kuwait Olympic Committee. It saw the participation of 1,000+ participants, where 3 winners received valuable cash prizes in addition to an opportunity for the winner of the first place to represent the Kuwaiti National Team for Electronic Games. As regards sports and fitness, Boubyan WHOOP Showdown continued through the "Recovery Challenge” to encourage participants to improve their fitness performance numbers, and to simulate the body functions to recover, which helps change the lifestyle of users.
Additionally, there were also other events that stood as optimal opportunities to engage with the public and to interact with them such as Boubyan Escape Room and Boubyan Mind Games, which saw instant prizes and valuable gifts offered by the bank, while participants of various age groups enjoyed the events.
Enriching human resources
Boubyan managed to maintain its status as a banking institution that is keen on attracting the best national cadres and striving to improve its business environment, evident by receiving the Award for "Excellence in Manpower Nationalization”, awarded to the bank for its success and excellence in increasing the percentage of national manpower across the Kuwaiti banking sector in 2024, where the bank achieved 82 percent at the level of empowering and recruiting national manpower, as it supports and instills this social culture in a real and sustainable manner, which reflects positively on the future job market and reaching the desired results.
Boubyan’s human resources are one of its key pillars since they are the main driver for ongoing success. Boubyan spares no effort to improve communication with them through listening to their views and studying all their proposals, while taking into account the possibility of execution by employing the best scientific and technical approaches in a manner that contributes to instilling more loyalty to the bank in the employees.