If banking in Saudi Arabia was seen as a positive story two years ago, with record profits and growth, the picture today is even rosier, bankers believe, on the back of the country’s strong macroeconomics, healthy oil exports and impressive progress in key areas such as transport and infrastructure.
While banks in the West still struggle with the impact of the financial crisis, Saudi Arabia’s 12 commercial banks keep moving to ever greater heights with aggregate net profits in 2013 rising another 7% to reach a record SR37.8bn ($10.1bn). This was in excess of the previous record profit of SR34.6bn in 2006 and follows strong profit growth of 8.4% in 2012 and even stronger growth of 18.3% in 2011.
