Amman: Arab Bank Group, Jordan’s largest lender, said on Monday its first-quarter net profit was $218.3 million, up from $217.2 million a year earlier, helped by a rise in loans and customer deposits.
The bank, one of the Middle East’s major financial institutions, said in a statement loans and customer deposits grew by 3 per cent and 2 per cent respectively compared with the same period last year.
Customer deposits were $35.4 billion at the end of March while loans were $24.4 billion.
Arab Bank, present in 30 countries in five continents, owns 40 per cent of Saudi Arabia’s Arab National Bank ANB.
Chairman Sabih al-Masri said first-quarter results reflected “the bank’s well-diversified asset based and geographical spread”.
Chief Executive Nemeh Sabbagh said the ratio of non-performing loans to net loans was 4.7 per cent at the end of March. Liquidity continued to be robust with a loan-to-deposit ratio of 68.9 per cent.
In January, Arab Bank reported 2015 net profit of $442 million, from $577 million a year earlier, after putting aside hundreds of millions to cover a legal colony in the United States.
Arab Bank agreed last August to settle lawsuits filed by about 500 US citizens who sued the lender under the US.
Anti-Terrorism Act, which permits US citizens to pursue claims arising from international terrorism. The terms were not disclosed.
In September 2014, a US jury in New York found the bank liable for providing material support to Hamas and said it must compensate victims of two dozen attacks attributed to the Islamic militant group that took place more than a decade ago in and around Israel, the first time a bank was held liable in US
court for violating the act.
