20th Anniversary... We Started with a Dream, and Together We Will Shape the Future

Boubyan Bank celebrates its anniversary in November of each year. This year marks our 20th consecutive year of ongoing successes, which made us an Islamic banking and financial group with high creditworthiness, credibility, and reliability.

The beginning was with our establishment in 2004; back then, Boubyan Bank was at the bottom of the table of local banks in terms of financial and economic indicators. However, over two full decades and with the change of strategy in terms of structure and leadership the bank witnessed major transformations and reinforced its leadership position among the top 3 banks in Kuwait under the leadership of Boubyan Group’s Vice-Chairman & Group Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Adel Al-Majed, and his executive team, who led the group through transformation to success.

The Beginning

NBK’s joining the list of major shareholders of Boubyan Bank’s capital came as a key turning point in Boubyan’s history, which reinforced many of the achievements made by the bank within a relatively short period, chief among which was returning to core banking, profitability, and distribution of dividends to shareholders.

Generally, Boubyan Bank’s journey went through many milestones. The first was the incorporation phase (April-November 2004), up to the success and growth phase (2009-till date).

The Largest IPO in the History of Kuwait

The offering of Boubyan Bank’s shares in 2004 represented the largest IPO in the history of Kuwait with a then capital of KWD 76 million. On April 26th 2004, the Founders Committee of the bank kicked off subscription in the bank’s shares as per the Amiri Decree for establishing a Public Kuwaiti Shareholding Company under the name of “Boubyan Bank”.

In May 2004, Boubyan Bank’s Founders Committee announced the final allocation of the bank’s subscribed shares amounting to 760 million shares, while deciding to cancel 167,000 subscription applications, out of 873,000 applications, which were found in breach of the subscription requirements, thus making it the largest IPO in the history of Kuwait.

On September 20th 2004, the Minister of Commerce and Industry issued his resolution to establish Boubyan Bank as a shareholding company; however, since the company was a bank, a special resolution had to be issued by the Ministry of Finance. Hence, Resolution no. 23 of 2004, dated November 28th 2004 was issued to enroll the bank in the Central Bank of Kuwait’s Register of Islamic Banks as per the provisions of Law no. 32 of 1968, as amended by Law no. 30 of 2003.

Launch and Challenges (2005-2009)

The year 2005 represented the actual launch of the bank’s operations, starting with a limited number of staff who operated from a small building at the heart of the capital. During the period from 2005 to 2007, the bank witnessed some important developments. In addition to the retail and corporate banking services that the bank started to offer, the bank focused largely on foreign investments and on establishing subsidiaries.

Starting from 2009 and until now, Boubyan has been succeeding through well-studied strategies with a future vision, including the activation of our group-wide wealth management plan, expanding our solutions, and exploring new investment opportunities in order to accelerate the attraction of more wealth to manage, thus pushing forward the financial and operating performance of the Group as whole.

Back to Core Banking

Despite all the challenges faced by Al-Majed and his team, all agreed from day one that it was necessary for the bank to return to core banking. Hence, a new strategy was developed that focused on bringing up a new spirit based on innovation and contribution to upgrading the bank’s services, in addition to the importance of introducing cutting-edge banking solutions that meet the demands of both retail and corporate customers, regardless of all potential challenges towards translation of all those into real solutions that meet customers’ needs.

Expansion Regionally and Internationally

Coinciding with its 20th anniversary, Boubyan has become a group now comprising of (Boubyan Bank, The Bank of London and the Middle East, and Nomo Bank “the Group’s digital arm”, in addition to another 3 companies, namely, Boubyan Takaful Insurance Company, Boubyan Capital Investment Company, and Boubyan National), to continue Boubyan’s strategy towards domestic and international expansion.

Furthermore, and as a part of its regional expansion, Boubyan established a subsidiary of BLME in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in addition to BLME’s headquarters in London and Dubai, and Boubyan now owns ~71% of BLME’s shares.

In line with the strategic approach aiming to reinforce the global presence of Boubyan Bank with focus on digital banking services, Nomo was established as a brand in Kuwait and the UK as the world’s first Islamic digital bank. Nomo succeeded in doing so as it serves as a platform for Sharia-compliant digital services and solutions, which is on track to penetrate GCC markets with steady steps towards further expansion.

Excellence in Customer Service

Ever since the first day of the bank’s transformation journey in 2009, Boubyan’s management has always been working to improve the quality of services and products to enrich a banking experience that meets the needs of customers and becomes part of their lifestyle. This led Boubyan to be in the lead of customer service in Kuwait as it has been named 2023’s “Best Islamic Bank in Customer Service” for the 14th year in a row since 2010 by Service Hero, the consumer-driven customer satisfaction index, making the bank a leading franchise in the banking industry, by following a tailored path that reinforces customer satisfaction levels, leading to receiving a 96% customer-satisfaction score among all Islamic and conventional local banks.

The Journey of Shaping the Digital Future

Boubyan Bank’s digital transformation strategy gained a significant momentum, being a real and living example for succeeding in being highly competitive regionally and internationally in digital banking services and in encouraging innovation and sustainable digital growth towards accelerating transformation and making financial transactions more convenient, thus enabling Boubyan to be in the forefront of the digital banking scene, globally, regionally, and domestically, evidenced by retaining the award for the World’s Best Islamic Digital Bank by Global Finance for a full decade ahead of Islamic banking institutions.

It can be safely said that owing to the proactive vision and well-studied plans of Boubyan Bank’s management, the bank managed to prove that digital transformation was the key concept and driver behind upgrading the digital infrastructure of the bank’s digital services and reinforcing the infrastructure of its digital solutions’ portfolio to be in the lead of institutions that support investing in digital services, and to provide the banking sector with many exceptional digital banking services launched for the first time in Kuwait by Boubyan.

CSR and Empowering Local Entrepreneurs

Boubyan Bank managed to stand out as an excellent role model in CSR and in the support of sustainability - being one of the key drivers and pillars in its business strategy - through many events and initiatives, which highlighted its social excellence and plans that seek to make it always the closest to all segments of the Kuwaiti society, in addition to the launch of some of its humanitarian projects inside and outside Kuwait.

Boubyan has demonstrated excellence and keenness on providing its business banking customers with the best digital banking solutions, being the first bank of choice for the youths. The bank managed to prove its leadership in providing the necessary financial and advisory support to entrepreneurs to enable them to translate their ideas into reality. The bank further incentivizes their growth opportunities, considering them a key pillar to diversify the revenues of the national economy.

Nationalization and Empowering Women

Boubyan’s human resources are one of its key pillars since they are the main driver for ongoing success. Recently, the bank managed to achieve national manpower ratios that crowned the bank with the Award for “Excellence in Manpower Nationalization” for the year 2024 across the banking sector for the sixth time by the GCC Council of Ministers of Labor & Social Affairs, as the bank achieved 82%, coupled with the fact that youths account for 91.24% of its cadres.

Boubyan Bank considers the empowerment of women in leadership positions an integral part of its strategy towards applying the standards of corporate sustainability and inclusion. Boubyan focused on managing and reinforcing the role of its women leaders by providing them with the best tools and scientific approaches which equip them with the skills required to shape excellent personal leadership enabling them to achieve the highest levels of success.

With our history of leadership and success throughout the past years, we will continue thriving and stay in the lead for many years to come.