Bahrain-based BMI Bank, an associate of BankMuscat, posted a net profit of $1.4 million for the first quarter.

While that is well down on last year's first-quarter profit of $4.2 million, chief executive officer Andrew Bainbridge is confident that it is going to be a good year for the bank which saw total loans and advanced slip slightly from $1.3 billion at the year end to $1.2 billion.

'I am pleased with our first quarter results achieved against a tough operating environment which we believe will continue to remain difficult and challenging,' he said 'We have prudently reduced our cross border exposure whilst continuing to grow within the kingdom.

'We have top class capital adequacy and our strong liquidity gives us added security as well as the ability to support our customers.

'During the first quarter of the year, we continued to grow customer numbers and ran a successful personal loan campaign as well as significantly upgraded our Al Mazyona prize scheme providing customers with more chances to win.'

He said the bank was concentrating on lending in Bahrain because he felt that was much safer than the overseas syndicated loan market.

'The good news is that our results for February were better than January and March was better than February.

'We have been cutting costs and fee income and commissions are up.

'We were recently awarded the Bahrain e-Content Award 2009, for our online platforms recognising easy usage of our comprehensive e-banking services in a safe and secure environment,' he added.

'We have started to renew our IT platform to enable ourselves to offer our customers timely execution, better information flow and sophisticated products.

'In addition we will shortly roll out our new Chip & PIN (EMV) debit and credit cards, as well as our extended opening hours at all branches enabling customers to bank at their convenience,' he added.-TradeArabia News Service