[caption id="attachment_82828" align="alignleft" width="244"] Ahmed Abdul Rahim [/caption]MANAMA – Ithmaar Bank, a Bahrain-based Islamic retail bank, announced Tuesday that its retail banking subsidiary in Pakistan, Faysal Bank Limited (FBL), has maintained growth momentum and improved profitability. The announcement by Ithmaar Bank Chief Executive Officer and FBL Vice Chairman Ahmed Abdul Rahim follows the review and approval by the FBL Board of Directors of the financial results for the half year ended June 30, 2016. FBL has a network of 316 branches, is listed on the Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad Stock Exchanges, and is mainly engaged in corporate, commercial and consumer banking activities. Ithmaar Bank owns 66.57 percent of FBL. "I am pleased to announce that FBL registered a healthy profit, after tax, of $27 million (PKR 2.8 billion) during the first half of 2016, registering a 10 percent increase over the profit reported for the corresponding period of 2015 despite the imposition of the Super Tax by the Government of Pakistan which amounted to $3.3 million (PKR 0.35 billion)," said Abdul Rahim. "The banking industry is witnessing a period of low spreads in Pakistan and, to maintain spreads, the Bank focused its efforts on the prudent allocation of assets as well as on aggressively pursuing delinquent clients, mobilizing low cost core deposits and achieving cost efficiency. During the year, the bank successfully executed large corporate and investment banking deals, and was also the lead arranger for entities in the energy sector. These measures helped increasing Earnings Per Share (EPS) of the bank PKR 2.14 to PKR 2.35," he said. "FBL's balance sheet has also grown significantly with total assets increasing by six percent to $4.4 billion (PKR 455 billion) as at 30 June 2016, compared to $4.1 billion (PKR 430 billion) as of Dece. 31, 2015," said Abdul Rahim. "Total deposits have also grown from $2.81 billion (PKR 292 billion) as of Dec. 31, 2015 to $3.02 billion (PKR 315 billion) as of June 30 2016, crossing the PKR 300 billion mark which is a milestone for the bank," he said. FBL plans to open 75 new Islamic branches in 2016, of which 34 branches have already been opened so far. The bank is also planning to become one of the top tier banks in Pakistan in the coming years through further increasing its branch network and enhancing its delivery channels. FBL's financial performance has earned the bank "AA" and "A1+" ratings for the long and short terms respectively, with stable outlook, from the JCR-VIS Credit Rating Company Limited and the Pakistan Credit Rating Agency Limited.
