Boubyan Bank posts first Q profits of KD 5.7m

Boubyan Bank recorded net profits of KD 5.7 million for 1st Quarter of this year, an 84 percent increase for the same quarter last year, giving an earnings per share of 2.9 Fils, said a press statement by the bank on Saturday. Adel Abdul-Wahab Al-Majid, vice-president and CEO of the bank, said that the 1st Quarter report showed that the bank was starting the year on a strong note. Total bank assets grew to KD 2.3 billion by the end of the first quarter, a jump of 18 percent from last year for the same quarter, he said. As for operating earnings, he said they topped KD 18.2 million in the 1st Q compared to KD 15 million for the same quarter last year, an increase of 22 percent. There was also noticeable growth in deposit accounts which reached KD 1.7 billion in the 1st Quarter, a spike of 17 percent for the same quarter last year, he noted. He added that 2014 represented the fifth year in the bank's Five Year Strategy Plan, launched in 2010, and marked the passing of ten years since the bank's establishment in November 28, 2004. Stressing the success of the Strategy, he said the bank was going to keep on adopting it for the foreseeable future, noting that future plans involved seeking out opportunities in overseas markets. In that vein, he said Boubyan bank had already increased its stake in Indonesia's Islamic bank known as Muamalat Bank due to the growth of Islamic banking in Indonesia.