DUBAI: Arab bank deposits amounted to about $2.2 trillion in 2016, equal to 89 percent of the value of the overall economy, a report said. The security and political conditions in the Arab world over the last five years have, however, hit the regional economy, said Joseph Torbey, chairman of the World Union of Arab Bankers (WUAB). Torbey was speaking during a press conference to launch a WUAB report on the developments and challenges faced by the Arab banking sector in 2016-2017.
The report stated the total assets of the sector amounted to $3.4 trillion at the end of 2016, which equals 140 percent of the total Arab gross domestic product (GDP). The report showed that the UAE banking sector ranked first in terms of the value of assets with $711 billion, followed by its Saudi, Egyptian, Qatari, Lebanese and Kuwaiti counterparts with assets exceeding $601 billion, $357 billion, $347 billion, $204 billion and $197.5 billion respectively. It showed the sector injected about $1.9 trillion in credit into Arab economies by the end of 2016. The report said Islamic Arab banks are continuing to “dominate the world’s Islamic banking arena in terms of the number and size of those banks,” adding that 48 of the largest 100 Islamic financial entities are in Arab countries, particularly in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries with 41. The GCC countries’ banks hold about 50 percent of the world’s Islamic banking assets, the report showed. The report forecast that Arab banks will face more pressures and challenges during 2017 because of low liquidity, slow deposit growth and other reasons related to slow growth rates in the Arab world.
