At the aggregate level, The Banker’s Top 100 Arab Banks ranking for 2023 paints a picture of a region that has successfully navigated the headwinds experienced by their global peers. As a bloc, lenders in the Arab world registered increases in Tier 1 capital, assets and profits for 2022 — in contrast to the declines posted by the rest of the world’s Top 1000 banks.
As in previous years, however, the headline figure obscures important variations in performance across the region, with the contrast in fortunes as stark as ever in the 2023 ranking. Although lenders in oil-exporting states such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE continue to thrive, banks in the wider region saw decreases in dollar terms more in line with their global peers, thanks to difficult economic conditions and depreciating local currencies.
