First Gulf Bank, an Abu Dhabi-based lender, plans to expand its corporate services division this year by opening representative offices in countries including China and South Korea as competition in the UAE banking industry intensifies.
“Like a lot of the UAE banks, we’re faced with a domestic banking market that clearly has a lot of banks in it – 51 banks within the UAE,” said Simon Penney, the recently appointed head of wholesale and international banking. “It’s a market share issue. There’s only so much you can grow in your domestic environment.”
He was speaking at a round table with reporters in Abu Dhabi yesterday.
Like some of its competitors, First Gulf Bank is seeking to tap trade and investment flows between Asia, the Middle East and Africa, a commercial banking market that is valued at more than US$137 billion.
As part of its expansion plan, Mr Penney said the lender was also looking to hire an additional 30 bankers at his division.
First Gulf Bank’s wholesale department, which chiefly provides the bank’s corporate clients with financing through loans, bonds and other forms of capital raising, is the product of a restructuring last year under which its corporate banking division, financial institutions group and international operations were rolled into one.
Mr Penney was previously the chief executive for the Middle East and Africa at Royal Bank of Scotland.
mkassem@thenational.ae