RAKBank is investing up to Dh600 million ($163.5 million) until 2026 as part of a four-year strategy to increase the digitalisation of its services and develop new business lines as it looks to diversify its revenue base and boost growth, its chief executive has said.
The bank’s growth strategy is focused on making RAKBank a “more holistic partner” for its clients, giving them more than just lending and deposit facilities, Raheel Ahmed told The National in an interview.
“We refreshed our previous strategy in 2022 and we got full support from the board. We have a plan all the way to 2026 and we expect to invest between Dh400 million to Dh600 million over that period,” he said.
From a balance sheet mix perspective, RAKBank has already made a lot of changes this year and the lender intends to continue with that momentum in 2023.
“Now we want to get more into cash management, trade, FX [foreign currency], hedging and treasury products,” he said.
The bank is also evaluating how it can further diversify into trade financing, invoice discounting and supply chain financing as it looks to “go up that curve”.
On the personal banking side, RAKBank is looking to grow its wealth management, as well as its transaction and payments businesses.
“We want to grow these fee-based products and services, which should create more diversity without adding more risk to the bank's profile,” Mr Ahmed said.
The planned diversification will add a “new pillar” to RAKBank’s business. However, in the scheme of overall things, “it will not be a material contributor this year”.
“It will get set up and will get momentum and then from 2024 onwards, I think it will become a bigger and bigger proportion of our business,” Mr Ahmed said.
The lender is also considering launching debt and equity advisory services for its clients, but it is a plan for the later stages of its expansion drive, he said.
RAKBank, which previously focused largely on extending financing to small and medium enterprises, has already changed its business mix and is “chasing risk-adjusted returns”.
“We used to be an SME bank largely [but] now, if you look at our assets, our lending is 20 per cent to SMEs, 40 per cent to personal [banking] and 40 per cent to wholesale banking,” he said.
RAKBank has recovered well from the coronavirus-induced slowdown that dented profitability and pushed the ratio of non-performing loans up across the banking industry in the region.
On Monday, RAKBank reported a more than 53 per cent jump in its full-year net profit to Dh1.16 billion, the highest pace of growth in more than a decade.
The lender’s non-performing loan ratio improved to 3 per cent in 2022, from 4 per cent a year earlier. The impaired loan provision coverage ratio increased to 181.7 per cent last year, up from 133.7 per cent in 2021.
The UAE’s macroeconomic fundamentals and higher interest rates also supported top and bottom-line growth last year, Mr Ahmed said.
The UAE economy made a strong recovery from the coronavirus-induced slowdown on the back of government initiatives, higher oil prices, a strong performance in its property sector and a rebound in travel and tourism.
The Arab world’s second-largest economy is estimated to have grown by 7.6 per cent last year, the highest in 11 years, after expanding by 3.9 per cent in 2021, according to the UAE Central Bank.
Overall, the country’s economy is projected to grow 3.9 per cent in 2023, the Central Bank said.
The continued economic momentum this year bodes well for the RAKBank, which expects to grow sharply, although at a slower pace than the last year after a V-shaped recovery in 2022, Mr Ahmed said.
“When you come with V-shape reset, you cannot sustain 50 per cent [or] 60 per cent growth rates every year. But do we see a solid positive momentum going forward? Yes, we do,” he said.
The bank is currently not looking at expanding beyond the UAE's borders and will remain focused on building the right technology, data and analytics infrastructure.
“I think we still have maybe a year or 18 months of foundations to develop before we think about expansion,” Mr Ahmed said.
“For a mid-size bank like RAKBank, we have enough growth opportunity in the country,” he said.
“I think 2023, in particular, [there] will be a lot of focus on the domestic market and growing market share.”
Players Selected for La Liga Trials
U18 Age Group
Name: Ahmed Salam (Malaga)
Position: Right Wing
Nationality: Jordanian
Name: Yahia Iraqi (Malaga)
Position: Left Wing
Nationality: Morocco
Name: Mohammed Bouherrafa (Almeria)
Position: Centre-Midfield
Nationality: French
Name: Mohammed Rajeh (Cadiz)
Position: Striker
Nationality: Jordanian
U16 Age Group
Name: Mehdi Elkhamlichi (Malaga)
Position: Lead Striker
Nationality: Morocco
Abu%20Dhabi%E2%80%99s%20Racecard
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Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
Top tips to avoid cyber fraud
Microsoft’s ‘hacker-in-chief’ David Weston, creator of the tech company’s Windows Red Team, advises simple steps to help people avoid falling victim to cyber fraud:
1. Always get the latest operating system on your smartphone or desktop, as it will have the latest innovations. An outdated OS can erode away all investments made in securing your device or system.
2. After installing the latest OS version, keep it patched; this means repairing system vulnerabilities which are discovered after the infrastructure components are released in the market. The vast majority of attacks are based on out of date components – there are missing patches.
3. Multi-factor authentication is required. Move away from passwords as fast as possible, particularly for anything financial. Cybercriminals are targeting money through compromising the users’ identity – his username and password. So, get on the next level of security using fingertips or facial recognition.
4. Move your personal as well as professional data to the cloud, which has advanced threat detection mechanisms and analytics to spot any attempt. Even if you are hit by some ransomware, the chances of restoring the stolen data are higher because everything is backed up.
5. Make the right hardware selection and always refresh it. We are in a time where a number of security improvement processes are reliant on new processors and chip sets that come with embedded security features. Buy a new personal computer with a trusted computing module that has fingerprint or biometric cameras as additional measures of protection.
Six large-scale objects on show
- Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
- The 17th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
- A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
- Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
- A full-scale Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, which transformed kitchen design in the 20th century
- Torrijos Palace dome
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
Brief scores:
Juventus 3
Dybala 6', Bonucci 17', Ronaldo 63'
Frosinone 0
The Details
Kabir Singh
Produced by: Cinestaan Studios, T-Series
Directed by: Sandeep Reddy Vanga
Starring: Shahid Kapoor, Kiara Advani, Suresh Oberoi, Soham Majumdar, Arjun Pahwa
Rating: 2.5/5
Other must-tries
Tomato and walnut salad
A lesson in simple, seasonal eating. Wedges of tomato, chunks of cucumber, thinly sliced red onion, coriander or parsley leaves, and perhaps some fresh dill are drizzled with a crushed walnut and garlic dressing. Do consider yourself warned: if you eat this salad in Georgia during the summer months, the tomatoes will be so ripe and flavourful that every tomato you eat from that day forth will taste lacklustre in comparison.
Badrijani nigvzit
A delicious vegetarian snack or starter. It consists of thinly sliced, fried then cooled aubergine smothered with a thick and creamy walnut sauce and folded or rolled. Take note, even though it seems like you should be able to pick these morsels up with your hands, they’re not as durable as they look. A knife and fork is the way to go.
Pkhali
This healthy little dish (a nice antidote to the khachapuri) is usually made with steamed then chopped cabbage, spinach, beetroot or green beans, combined with walnuts, garlic and herbs to make a vegetable pâté or paste. The mix is then often formed into rounds, chilled in the fridge and topped with pomegranate seeds before being served.
Scoreline
Syria 1-1 Australia
Syria Al Somah 85'
Australia Kruse 40'
Company profile
Name: Thndr
Started: October 2020
Founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: FinTech
Initial investment: pre-seed of $800,000
Funding stage: series A; $20 million
Investors: Tiger Global, Beco Capital, Prosus Ventures, Y Combinator, Global Ventures, Abdul Latif Jameel, Endure Capital, 4DX Ventures, Plus VC, Rabacap and MSA Capital
Yuki Means Happiness
Alison Jean Lester
John Murray
What to watch out for:
Algae, waste coffee grounds and orange peels will be used in the pavilion's walls and gangways
The hulls of three ships will be used for the roof
The hulls will painted to make the largest Italian tricolour in the country’s history
Several pillars more than 20 metres high will support the structure
Roughly 15 tonnes of steel will be used
Kill%20
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INDIA'S%20TOP%20INFLUENCERS
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Dust and sand storms compared
Sand storm
- Particle size: Larger, heavier sand grains
- Visibility: Often dramatic with thick "walls" of sand
- Duration: Short-lived, typically localised
- Travel distance: Limited
- Source: Open desert areas with strong winds
Dust storm
- Particle size: Much finer, lightweight particles
- Visibility: Hazy skies but less intense
- Duration: Can linger for days
- Travel distance: Long-range, up to thousands of kilometres
- Source: Can be carried from distant regions
More coverage from the Future Forum
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
