Bridging the Gulf

Adel El-Labban, CEO of Bahrain’s Ahli United Bank, talks to Stephen Timewell about progress on his plans for a pan-Gulf retail network.Most banks in the six states of the increasingly rich Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have tended to focus on their domestic markets and as a result remained relatively small compared with the region’s enormous wealth.But now a few are breaking through traditional barriers, creating regional networks and realising some of the Gulf’s potential.Bahrain’s Ahli United Bank (AUB) has been a pioneer of mergers and acquisitions in the Gulf and this remains central to the bank’s strategy.