National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) has been awarded 'The Best Bank in Kuwait for 2009' by the leading and internationally renowned Financial Times magazine 'The Banker'.

In selecting NBK for the award, The Banker said that NBK, which is the country's largest in asset terms, continued to expand domestically and regionally and despite the global financial crisis managed to produce significant net profits of $925 million providing a healthy 17.4 per cent return on average equity.

The Banker also noted that NBK has succeeded in entering the fast-growing Islamic banking market, through acquiring a 40 per cent stake in Kuwait's Boubyan Bank, adding that NBK continued to lead the domestic market, capturing 28 per cent of the total market growth of new loans, launching 14 new investment funds and opening six new branches in Kuwait bringing its local network to 70 branches in addition to more than 200 ATMs and CDMs.

'The bank, the highest-rated in the Middle East, also reported net profits of $703 million for the first nine months of 2009, with third quarter profits reaching $263 million, a 10 per cent improvement on the $239 million achieved in the third quarter of 2008,' The Banker added.-TradeArabia News Service