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Bahrain Islamic Bank (BisB) posted a net profit of BD26 million during the first half of this year.
It was an increase of 144 per cent compared with BD10.6 million during the same period last year.
BisB chairman Khalid Abdulla Albassam said: This excellent performance is due to the remarkable growth in the entire bank's business activities, and, in particular, the carefully selected finance and investment transactions - in addition to launching new products. This contributed to a significant increase in the total income from the bank's business activities in addition to a huge increase in total assets and customers' accounts."
Mr Albassam also stressed the bank's keenness on developing and improving the customer services and its continuation of launching new products.
"The operating income rose to BD42 million, an increase of 90 per cent compared with BD22 million during the same period last year. He attributed the increase to the continuous growth in Islamic finance transactions and realising an attractive returns on the bank's various investment activities,"_he said.
"The increase in total income contributed to an increase in return on investment accounts to BD7.5 million. Thus, the bank's management is still keen on distributing the best returns to its investors which attracted a bigger local market shares while market prices are continuously rising," Mr Albassam said.
He highlighted the solid status of the bank's assets that have not been affected by the financial shocks that the world experienced last year and early this year.
Chief executive Mohammed Ebrahim Mohammed praised the excellent financial results achieved by the bank stating: "As for the bank's financial position, the total assets rose by 34 per cent during the second quarter of this year at BD883 million.
"Such increased focused mainly on finance transactions and the steady increase in the bank's investments in general. These figures also reflect a remarkable increase in the total investments of all types of portfolios in order to mitigate risks as per the bank's general policy.
"In addition to launching its plan to develop all of its products in all branches, the bank has launched its internet banking on line during June. This service is designed to enable customers to complete their banking transactions more conveniently anytime and wherever they might be," he said.
He confirmed that the bank has completed employment for executive and top management positions, which gives the bank a bigger impetus to be a market leader.
"In a phenomenal step to diversify and expand its operations outside Bahrain, BisB signed a strategic partnership agreement with the Yemen Islamic Bank at the end last month. This agreement has entitled BisB to own an important quota share in the ownership of the Yemen Islamic Bank," said Mr Mohammed.
