Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait and National Bank of Bahrain are among the 50 Most Valuable Banks in the Middle East in 2023, in new rankings revealed by Forbes Middle East. To construct the list, they gathered data from listed stock exchanges in the Arab world and ranked companies based on their reported market value as of February 28, 2023.
The 50 banks have an aggregate market value of $548.1 billion. With a market cap of $75 billion, Saudi’s Al Rajhi Bank is the largest bank in the region. Saudi National Bank and Qatar’s QNB Group round up the top three, with $56.4 billion and $42.8 billion in market cap, respectively. Collectively, these three companies have a valuation of $174.2 billion, accounting for nearly 32% of the total list.
The ranking features entities from 10 markets, although GCC banks dominate with 41 entries, representing 82% of the list. Overall, Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. are home to the most banks on the list, with 10 entries each, constituting 40% of the ranking.
Saudi Arabia’s 10 most valuable banks have an aggregate market value of $223.5 billion. The U.A.E.’s 10 entries are worth $121.2 billion, Qatar’s eight banks have a market value of $81.3 billion, and Kuwait’s seven entries are worth $76.2 billion.
Increasingly, banks in the region are backing sustainable finance investments and securing deals to boost energy-efficient customer offerings. Under the National Bank of Kuwait’s pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, it installed 12 electric vehicle charging stations at different levels of the multi-storey car park attached to its green headquarters in 2022. The bank also joined the United Nations Global Compact in February 2023.
In April 2022, Qatar’s Masraf Al Rayan announced the launch of its sustainable financing framework to offer ESG-linked funding opportunities to investors. And the Commercial Bank of Dubai partnered with Sharaf DG in September 2022 to enable customers to adopt clean energy by installing Solar PV Systems for their homes from Sharaf DG Energy via a sustainable and digital financing option from CBD.
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