Best Islamic bank in the Middle East
Best Islamic Bank in the UAE
A changing of the guard this year. Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank is not the biggest Islamic bank in the region – a title still held by Saudi Arabia’s Al Rajhi, our long-time winner – but it deserves recognition this year for its strength, the clarity of its ambition, and its ability to bring innovation to Islamic finance without compromising its values.
It’s not as if ADIB is small: it ranks itself the fourth-largest Islamic bank in the world, with total assets of Dh96.4 billion ($26 billion). So it already has critical mass, particularly in the United Arab Emirates, where it reaches half a million retail customers through 80 branches. But it’s more the sense of direction that impresses. The bank has doubled its asset base within five years and has long since moved on from being purely an Abu Dhabi institution, with a growing presence in Egypt in particular (75 branches, through its ownership of National Development Bank Egypt) as well as Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iraq, Qatar and the UK.