These are good times to be a banker in Kuwait. As the country's government pushes ahead with its ambitious reform programme, new growth opportunities are opening up. Positive developments in the non-oil economy, which grew by 2.5% in 2017, are expected to drive the performance of most lenders over the medium term.
This partly explains why Kuwaiti banks have registered such positive results over the past year, despite a contraction in the wider economy linked to oil production cuts. Today, profits are up, asset quality is sound, and capital and liquidity ratios are healthy.
