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The National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) outlined today NBAD’s Group transformation to achieve its strategic plans for domestic and international expansion.
Alex Thursby, who became the Group Chief Executive Officer of NBAD on July 1st, is spearheading strategies built around three geographical pillars 1) Home Market; to build the largest, safest and best performing bank in the UAE and overtime in GCC; 2) Wholesale; to deepen wholesale network across the West-East Corridor and integrate the Bank’s European and North American platforms into this network; and 3) build five international bank franchises in the largest and fastest growing economies in the West-East Corridor.The Bank’s West-East Corridor strategy will utilise UAE’s and NBAD’s strong fundamentals as well as the country’s strategic location to tap into the growing economies that span from West Africa across to East Asia. The ‘Corridor’ includes increasingly important economies in MENA, the Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia and greater China. This region represents vast potentials with unlimited resources, growing economic activities, and an emerging middle class.
NBAD’s Wholesale Banking has identified the five sectors that align to the Bank’s strategy as financial institutions, energy, aviation and transportation, real estate and family conglomerates, and retailers.
The bank will also establish eight banking hubs in Abu Dhabi, Mumbai, Lagos, Singapore, Hong Kong, London, Paris, and Washington D.C.
NBAD, which has the widest international network among UAE banks with operations in 18 countries, will continue to strengthen its European and North American platforms. However, its growth concentration is focused on emerging markets in West-East Corridor where economies grow faster than in developed markets.
Emerging markets are expected to increase their contribution to global GDP at the expense of developed economies.This year, emerging markets are expected to account for more than half of global GDP. Emerging markets are also increasing their agricultural output hand-in-hand with increased manufactured goods, and growing their imports as consumer demands increase.Another potential to tap into is increasing savings in emerging markets, and decreasing percentage of debt to their GDP. In the financial industry, too, this decade is the era of emerging markets banks. In all aspects, emerging market companies are outperforming developed-economy companies.
Within the West-East Corridor, the UAE is a significant and influential enabler of commerce. Its free and open economy is the 30th largest in the world and is bigger than other great commercial hubs of comparable fundamentals.
The UAE’s strong fundamentals are strengthened by its location at the heart of the West-East Corridor. Trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) flow across the Corridor is growing, in some cases more than 10%. NBAD, as the premier bank of the UAE, seeks to be the enabler of the trade and be a dominant player in it.
To strengthen NBAD’s position to achieve these strategies, the Bank implemented transformations in the third quarter, including re-alignment of businesses.
“To streamline our operations, one priority area is to build an organisation structure that is simple and scalable, with no duplications,” said Mr. Thursby. “NBAD’s objective is to be core to our chosen customers and successfully execute our strategy. Early momentum has continued and we are implementing our new structure with pace across the Group and I am pleased with how smooth the transition is progressing,” said Mr. Thursby.
He continues: “I’m very happy to report that early results are very encouraging, they are nothing short of phenomenal:In Wholesale Banking we closed some valuable deals, started new revenue campaigns across the business and have an excellent pipeline going forward.”
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