Bahrain-based Al Baraka Banking Group, a leading Islamic banking group has announced a seven per cent increase in total operating income and 9 per cent increase in net operating income during 2016 compared with 2015.

Total operating income exceeded the level of $1 billion to reach US$1.08 billion in 2016 compared to $1 billion in 2015, an increase of 7 per cent. This improvement percentage will jump to 16 per cent if the effects of the devaluation of currencies of some units countries are excluded.

Net operating income increased by 9 per cent (will jump to 18 per cent in case of excluding of  currencies devaluation effects) from $464 million to $507 million during the same period, despite the noticeable increase of 6 per cent in operating expenses due to expansion in branch network from $536 million to $567 million.

After deducting provisions, which were doubled by the Group as precautionary measures due to general economic and financial conditions in some countries where the units operate as well as the rest of the world, the Group was able to achieve a net income attributable to equity holders of the Parent of $152 million during 2016, slowing down by 7 per cent compared to  2015 of $163 million. The Groups total net income reached $268 million, down by 6 per cent compared to $286 million during 2015.

Both the net income attributable to shareholders and total income will increase by 2 per cent and 3 per cent respectively if the effects of the decrease in local currencies of the countries of some units against the US dollar were excluded. ROE reached 13 per cent in 2016.

These profits come in line with our expectations and estimate at the beginning of the year and reflect the Groups ability to achieve the continued growth in revenues derived from diversified and sustainable resources and based on high-quality income-generating assets and wide network of clients, branches, relations and products.

With regard to the results of the fourth quarter of 2016 as compared to the results of the fourth quarter of 2015, total operating income increased by 9 per cent to $285 million from $262 million and net operating income by 12 per cent to $145 million from $130 million, while net income attributable to equity holders reached $35 million down by 16 per cent compared to $42 million during the fourth quarter of 2015 and total net income reached $64 million, down by 12 per cent compared to $72 million during the fourth quarter of 2015 as a result of doubling the provisions for the reasons mentioned earlier.

Adnan Ahmed Yousif, member of the board of directors and president & chief executive of Al Baraka Banking Group, said: " 2016 saw the continuation of the difficult international and regional developments and conditions, including the slowdown of economic activities, the decline in oil prices, in addition to decline of currencies value of some of our units' countries against the US dollar, the currency of the Group's consolidated reports.”

“But despite all these developments, we were able to maintain our strong profits and operational positions,” he added. “The performance of all our units was a very strong and proved to be able to adapt and even benefit from the economic and financial developments in their countries in promoting their activities and income.”

"Due to opening new branches and acquiring a bank by Al Baraka Bank Pakistan, total new branches of the units increased by 111 branches in 2016 to bring total branches to 697 branches with total staff of 12,644,”he noted.

“For 2017, we expect the fluctuations in regional and international markets will continue, which creates difficult business environment for international banks, but we will continue our precious policy and investment of our large financial and technical resources in addition to wide geographical network of the units of the Group towards maximizing the returns for our shareholders and the investors in the Group,” Yousif concluded.- TradeArabia News Service