Awards for Excellence 2020
Under the stewardship of chief executive Jean-Christophe Durand, formerly head of BNP Paribas’s Middle East and Africa operations, National Bank of Bahrain (NBB) embarked on a radical transformation programme in 2017 that delivered impressive results during the awards period.
“We were always a solid, old-fashioned retail bank,” says Durand. “In 2017 we drew up the road map. Most importantly the transformation was made by people. We have a mindset of change, a mindset of transformation.”
Digital development was core to the bank’s strategy, with management deciding that every aspect of the banking experience had to be modernized. The bank began investing heavily in the latest technology, which included the transformation of systems, the digitalization of internal processes, the improvement of risk-management structures and improving compliance functions to international standards.
Its financials have improved markedly as a result, with profits up 6% year on year in 2019 to BD74.2