Ahli United Bank (AUB) emerged as the clear winner in the Bahrain country category this year. The lender enjoyed impressive growth over the 2017 review period with total assets climbing by 6.1%, while net profits increased by 8.4%. More encouragingly, this was accompanied by an improvement in AUB’s return on equity, which jumped from 15.6% to 16.5%. Over the same period, the ratio of the bank’s non-performing loans fell from 2.3% to 1.9%